


Flatmates

by Thurifut



Series: Flatmates Verse [2]
Category: Inception (2010), James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, BAMF everyone, Bartenders, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort Sex, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hacking, Homophobia, London, M/M, Multi, Neighbors, Organized Crime, Secret Identity, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Slow Build, Terrorists, Texting, Trust Issues, revolves around food
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3974887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thurifut/pseuds/Thurifut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is an ordinary bartender, Arthur is an ordinary hacker, and Q and James are the ambiguously homosexual couple next door. These seemingly normal neighbors are civilians and soldiers; criminals and government agents. Out of nowhere, a terrorist group emerges as a danger to not only London, but the rest of the world. As MI6 scrambles to face this new threat, these four flatmates find their friendship, love, and loyalty put to the test.</p><p>UPDATE 1-3-16: yay new chapter! It was sort of just sitting in my drive for a few months before I found the time to give it an edit and shove it up on ao3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Permanent Hotel Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September, 2012

By the time Arthur is twenty-six, he has amassed a respectably - no, _alarmingly_ large fortune.

He likes to think that his story is a fairly simple one - cruising through through primary school, skipping high school in favor of CalTech, dropping out when he realized he could teach himself the courses faster than the professor could, and setting about to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. The method of which just happened to be utterly illegal. But hey, money is money. Now there’s just one problem to left to solve - what to do with it. He’s figured out that he wants to stay in London for now, which rules out things like private islands and Scottish castles, but he hasn’t gotten much further than that. He’s tried the sprawling mansion, the upscale penthouse, and just flat-out living in hotels for weeks on end. The mansion brought back memories, the penthouse was too large, and the hotels were too crowded.

For a man with more money than most drug lords, he is definitely having a hard time finding a place to live.

All until one day, when he’s got his single suitcase in hand, pushing through the rotating door of yet another hotel. He glances over and sees the luggage carts - great brass-and-velvet contraptions with arching arms, loaded to the top with suitcases. A woman in a mink coat is arguing with some unfortunate lobby boy in front of one. She stabs a pastel-yellow nail at her lurid monster of a suitcase, and then turns back to the boy, mouth flapping. Arthur looks down as his own suitcase, then back at the cart, and stops dead in his tracks, in the middle of the marble lobby floor. He looks at the luggage cart, stacked high with bags. He looks back at his own suitcase.

That’s it. He doesn’t need a house, or a castle. He just wants something like a permanent hotel room - a bed and a bathroom he can call his own. A… a _flat_. A smile begins to break out across his face, and the next thing he knows, he’s striding right back out of the rotating doors and pulling out his mobile to search for the nearest flats.

Arthur’s amazed that the idea didn’t strike him sooner. Flats just seemed so... pedestrian. Now that he thinks of it, though, it's the perfect idea. He doesn’t make a habit of holding onto possessions. All he really has is a suit, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of sweats, a handful of socks and underwear, a few toiletries, and his computer. Everything else he needs is in his head, and he takes pride in that. He doesn’t mind sharing a space, either. After all, he is living on borrowed time. It would be good to live somewhere that someone was already occupying. That meant he wouldn’t have to fill an empty house with possessions. Possessions meant attachments.

Attachments - well, those come with all kinds of messy complications that Arthur is entirely happy to avoid.

A few hours later, Arthur is sitting across from a flat manager, trying to make his request understood.

“I’m sorry, but you said you want one - _one_ room?”

The poor man looks baffled, and his eyes keep sweeping over the perfectly pressed collar of Arthur’s Westwood as if trying to corroborate visual evidence with the testimony.

“Yes,” Arthur replies patiently. “Just a room and a bathroom. Sharing is fine, and the price isn’t a problem, but I do expect it to be reasonable."

The manager struggles to comprehend his odd request for just a moment more before composing himself. He coughs. “I think I can arrange that for you. We’ve recently had a new opening for a flatmate. It’s a lovely two-bedroom flat, one full bath, and right by Chadwell Heath Station. It’ll be nine hundred pounds a month, for your half of the rent. The man living there right now is quite a friendly fellow. He wouldn't be a problem at all. He has got late hours though. Would you like to meet him, sir?”

Arthur isn’t fooled - he’s done his research and knows that this is a good thirty-eight percent higher than it ought to be for the area. He can hardly blame the manager for taking advantage of an opportunity, though, and it hardly makes a difference to him. He simply gives a curt nod. “Of course.”

It turns out Arthur’s potential future flatmate, a man by the name of Richard Harding, isn’t going to be home until four in the morning. The manager, of course, assumes that he would rather wait until tomorrow to meet Mr. Harding, but Arthur says that four am is perfectly fine. The manager looks a little disconcerted, but he clearly remembers the handsome rent he’ll be getting out of Arthur, and agrees easily. He pulls out a notepad and scrawls down an address.

“Alright. 202C, Warrington Road, Dagenham. I’ll be there at four to introduce you to Mr. Harding and answer any questions.”

Arthur takes the paper. “Excellent. I will see you there, then.”

He brings his messenger, but leave his suitcase, and hails a cab, intending to wander about for the rest of the day.

As the cab speeds off, Arthur watches the streets zoom by through the window like a child. It never bores him, London. The reason Arthur loves it is that it’s an algorithm in itself. Between the constant flow of people and automobiles, the unevenly drawn streets, and the barrage of sounds and sights coming from every which way, the city is thriving with data that eddies and drips into its every crevasse.

Ever since he first saw pictures of London as a child, Arthur has been enthralled by the city. In real life, it did not disappoint. He’s been to New York, to Tokyo, to the big names and small ones alike, but London draws him back every time.

It’s fascinating to Arthur, to try and understand the inner workings of the city. Everything that happens has a reason for happening, and he can’t help but to be enthralled by the strings of data that stretch between everything he can see and hear. His area of expertise is computers and code, not cities and people, but sometimes he thinks they’re not very different at all.

Moseying down South Bank, he catches sight of a theatre. A steady stream of people are flowing into the doors. He finds a man looking just the right kind of suspicious, exchanges a few words, and a handful of notes later, he’s swindled his way into a ticket and is easing down the aisle. A few rows down, he catches sight of a girl with wavy chestnut hair and a lacy grey top, with an open seat to her left. He would guess that she’s saving the seat for someone, but her fixed stare on the program, slightly leftwards lean away from the man on right, and closed-off posture suggests that she is here alone. He slides his way past a couple of knees to the seat and pauses politely.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

She looks up from her program too quickly to have been reading it. She’s pretty, in a fox-like way, with wide-set amber eyes and a little upturned nose. She smiles a little hesitantly before shaking her head.

He slides into the seat with a charming smile, and then offers his hand. “Michael.”

She take his hand with a smile. “Christina.”

The next two hours pass in dimly-lit, pleasantly boring conversation. Miss Christina is a nice distraction. She asks if he’s from Manchester, probably trying to be clever by analyzing his accent. He’s a little disappointed that she didn’t pick up on the Liverpool he was really going for, but says yes anyway. It turns out she’s a travel agent, who helps out the hordes of tourists that stream towards the city in summer months. She loves how fascinated they are with everything they see, and it just reignites her passion for the city every time. Her workload is significantly lightened now, as it’s September, and they’ve all gone home, and if he doesn’t mind, what does he do? He says something like banking, and invents a few stories about his job to entertain her. It entertains him, though, how she tries to be a charmer, and just barely manages. Between the girl and the show, it’s enough to occupy his time

As they’re exiting, he makes no move to extend their time together, and he can sense her dismay. He’s amused when she blurts out at the last second, “If you haven’t got plans for the evening… would you like to grab a drink?”

Arthur looks at her for a moment. Of course she would be the earnest type. “No, thank you,” he says without a hint of apology. Just as her face falls in ill-disguised disappointment, he turns on his heel and vanishes into the crowd.

That’s another reason he likes the city. So many people to play with, so many lives to look into. It’s a buffet of humanity, and Arthur has a healthy appetite.

It’s nearing dark, and the cold is starting to set in. He still has two hours until the flat appointment, so he decides on one of his favorite bars, Jules and Jaccarino _._ It attracts all types, especially with its Tuesday night specials, and a relaxed atmosphere that belies the artistry that the drinks are made with. Jules is in that perfect niche that isn’t below the upper-class of London, but isn’t too far above any plebeian looking for a good night out. Arthur doesn’t come here enough to be counted a regular, but when he does, he knows what to expect.

He orders the first drink he sees. It doesn’t matter. He finds a stool at the end of the granite counter, and spends the next hour or so ignoring it. By 10 pm, the bar is pretty packed for a weekday. The din of conversation and clinking glasses fills up the room, the golden lamplight reflecting off the granite. He watches the couple who are clearly not having a good date, and the silent man in the fedora who orders a steady stream of vodka. He watches the bartenders tend to them all.

At some point, when he’s maybe two-thirds finished with his drink (alcohol doesn’t do Arthur any good, and he doesn’t fancy getting into the habit of it), he notices that the bartender has filled the the fedora man’s shot glass with something that definitely didn't come from the _U’luvka_ decanter. Incredibly, the patron doesn’t seem to care, or even notice. He just tosses it back and swallows with a blank stare. Arthur inwardly raises an eyebrow.

The next time the bartender passes the counter in front of him, Arthur murmurs, “It’s a shame you switched out the vodka.” The man pauses, and then turns to look at him.

“Why?”

“I was wondering how much he could have before he passed out.”

The bartender laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but he’s had the most I’ve ever seen. I’m fairly sure I could get convicted of manslaughter if I gave him another." He leans a little on the counter between them, with his very nice arms propped up casually by the elbows. The top three unbuttoned buttons of his shirt pull slightly. "As long as he keeps paying the same rate for water as vodka, I’ll stick to it.”

Arthur smiles a bit as he leans back. "Sly.

The bartender chuckles, "Or perhaps I'm not interesting in finding a man on the floor of my bar. Dead, that is."

Arthur smiles, acutely aware that he’s just bordering on genuine. “Good reason.”

The bartender laughs. "I'm Eames,” he says. “You?”

"Arthur."

Fuck. It just slips out.

The bartender nods, his eyes practically navy in the warm light. "Enjoy your drink, Arthur," and glides to the next customer.

Arthur regards his two-thirds drained glass and imagines the 20.6 grams of alcohol coursing through his bloodstream. Damn him and his pathetic tolerance. He entirely understands the science of it - his genetics, his body mass index, his exceptionally slow rate of alcohol metabolism, but in the end, the fact that he’s a complete lightweight still gets on his nerves.

Arthur doesn’t like being drunk. He doesn’t really _do_ drunk. Especially public drunkenness. He supposes that he could always buy a bucket of wine and get blackout drunk in a hotel room.

However, the last time he did that, he’d blackout-coded a virus that had replaced the presidential portraits on the government websites of sixteen countries with the singing face of Rick Astley. Now that had been a good one.

Of course, he’d fixed it a few days later, when he got tired of the news coverage. Moral of the story: he may like messing with people, but he wasn’t _twelve_ anymore.

Arthur sighed. No getting drunk, and no getting laid. It must be a complete disgrace to the long and illustrious history of bar goers. Logically, Arthur knows he could buy his own damn bar and an eight-story apartment complex with a side of fifty escorts and be done with it. He immediately dismisses the notion, though. Arthur can essentially have whatever he wants, so he doesn’t feel the need to figure out exactly why he doesn’t want to do something.

He just doesn’t do it.

Plus, games are only games if you play by some of the rules, and the “posh Londoner businessman” look doesn’t really include “buy an eight-story apartment complex” in the instructions. That would just be overkill.

Arthur ignores the bartender and his navy eyes and dirty-blond scruff and definitely does not consider ordering a vodka for the hell of it.

Instead, Arthur watches the fedora man for the rest of the night. He’s really the only (other) interesting person in the place, parked alone in a leather armchair. Arthur’s morbidly fascinated by how the man has managed to down near twenty drinks, despite the latter few being sparkling water, and not so much as glance towards the bathroom.

A few girls try to talk to Fedora Man, but his sparse responses leave them scurrying. Some time later, the man’s mobile goes off. He pulls it out with a scowl, but when he flicks it open, a surprising softness settles across his features.

He stands, immaculately cut suit drawing more than a few glances. Then, he carelessly drops a few bills on the table before pocketing his phone and slipping out the door.

Arthur watches him go. Apparently, his disappointment in the only interesting person leaving the bar apparently shows on his face.

“It’s a shame.”

From behind him, the blond bartender is leaning into the counter with a knowing smile.

Arthur schools his expression into stoicism. He doesn’t have a problem with it, certainly, but that’s not what he’s looking for tonight. He has an appointment, and as entertaining as the thought might be, showing up wrapped around an unsuspecting bartender might not exactly hit it off with his new flatmate.

“Why so?” he asks coolly.  

“You’re not the only one I’ve had to inform tonight that Mister Alec is taken.”

“As am I,” he replies before he can consider it.

He can’t think of a better way to discourage him for further flirting, though, so it may just be for the best.

The man doesn’t seem fazed at all, so Arthur tacks on, “You know him?

He _is_ curious, after all.

The bartender shrugs. “He stops by every so often,” he says. “I would have probably forgotten about him if he didn’t manage to set records every time he does.”

Arthur allows himself a small chuckle. From across the bar, another bartender calls, “Eames, Cosmo!”

The bartender- _Eames_ turns around and gives the girl a nod. “On it, Ari.”

He sets about making the drink, practiced hands dispensing ice and vodka and triple sec.

“So,” he says, as he swiftly pours a measure of liquor into the mixer, “I’ve been meaning to ask, why do you only have one drink whenever you visit?”

Arthur is surprised that Eames remembers him. He’s quite sure the last time he visited the bar was at least three weeks ago. “One is enough. I don’t fancy the intoxication or the hangover,” he says, meeting Eames’s eyes for a moment before Eames looks back down towards the mixer.

Eames screws the lid back on and nods as he begins to vigorously shake the cylinder. “I can’t argue with that,” he says affably.

Arthur does not get entranced by his biceps as his arms pump up and down. Really, he doesn’t. He is simply appreciating them;, but there’s only so much one can appreciate before it gets obvious.

Instead, they both end up spending a silent twenty seconds watching the shaker. Arthur isn’t exactly fascinated by the metal object, and Eames is perfectly capable of holding onto it without watching it, but there’s really nowhere else for them to put their eyes at this point.

Eventually, though, Eames stops shaking and unscrews the lid and continues to assemble the drink with military efficiency. By the time he’s garnishing the glass with a twist of orange, Arthur is fairly sure he’s memorized the grooves in his fingernails. The odd thing is, while the silence would be painfully awkward in any other situation, it’s not here. Here, it’s just Eames making a cocktail and Arthur watching him make it.

Eames doesn’t try to prod Arthur for any more information, and seems utterly content at his job. Arthur doesn’t see that very often, not in London. The tourists are faking it, the businessmen are faking it, hell, the natives are faking it. Eames is so calm, so relaxed, that Arthur can’t help but respect that just a little.

When he’s done, it seems only natural for Eames to look up at him, smile, and say, “Enjoy the rest of your drink,” before sweeping off to slide the drink over to his patron on the other side of the island. There, Eames leans forward on his elbows, and presumably engages the other patron. Arthur can see the crinkle of his eyes and lift of his grin from the side of his face as he speaks. He’s a professional.

Arthur goes back to his drink.

 

_Eames_

Eames likes to think of himself as a damn good expert in people; working as a bartender for the nine years tends to do that to a person. He can synthesize a picture of people based off how frequently they visit, how long they stay, what they order, and of course, what they say. A bar is a perfect exhibit of people from all walks of life, and Eames is happy to cater to them.

He practically owns Jules and Jaccarino. Technically, Saito owns it, but then again, Saito owns half the establishments in London. Eames doubts Saito knows shit about barkeeping, but he’s hired just the right subordinates to do that for him. After all, Saito seemed to have figured out early on that Eames had a keen eye for people.

As a kid, Eames had come with his mum to work after school. While she waitressed, he would hide in the storeroom, reading books. Sometimes, the nicer bartenders would let him fetch a bottle from a low shelf for them. He remembers doing that job with the utmost pride. After a while, he’d started memorizing the names and locations of each bottle in the storeroom, as well as the number in stock. The bar manager had been delighted and amused to have the small boy totter up to him at the end of each day to report what they were running low on.

Once he hit secondary school, his mum switched to Saito’s restaurant next door. With his mother out of sight, he started to illegally work more shifts. Eames had picked up the habit of quietly predicting what each customer would order and how much they would tip with uncanny accuracy. Someone must have told Saito, though.

One Wednesday night, he had been called out to talk to the Boss. Teenaged Eames had been scared shitless. It was to his great surprise that instead of kicking him out, Saito had handed him his card and told him to go home.

“Your mother is being taken care of at the steakhouse. She will not be needing your contributions. Do not come on weekdays anymore. Your job is to finish school now. If you’re still interested after you’re done, give me a call and perhaps we can find a place for you here.”

Sure enough, Eames found himself working full-time at Jules three years later. In addition to bartending, Eames runs interviews and “audition” shifts. He reports back to Saito on who was good or not, and Saito signs his checks. It’s a good arrangement. 

He supposes that his ability to read people didn’t exactly help on the real life relationship front, though. He had thought that Nash was right for him. They had been living together for seven months already when he came home early from work and found Nash and some faceless girl shagging on the sofa.

The worst part was, he was prepared to forgive him if he had just asked. It didn’t bother him that Nash was bi. Hell, he would have happily joined in if Nash had said the word. But instead, Nash had froze, looking guilty, and then irritated. He'd snarled at Eames to get the hell out.

When he had come back several hours later, he found Nash packing his things. He had tried to reason with him, tried to tell him that things could still be okay, that he didn’t mind. Nash had just shook his head. He’d had enough of Eames, he’d said, and then he was gone. Just like that.

That night, he’d downed six shots of vodka, went to sleep, and just like that, it was all over all too soon. Another lover, another failure, another hairline fracture in his heart.

As he always did, Eames found himself moving on. He still felt that sour strain inside sometimes when he saw other couples together, or when he mindlessly flirted with a stranger, but he didn’t dwell on it. After all, as a bartender, Eames was no stranger to heartbreak, both that of his own and that of others.

Sometimes, though, he wondered if there was some sort of limit to the getting-over one could do before giving up.

The moment the suited man walked into his bar, Eames had him pegged as the repressed-businessman type. The spiffy suit, leather messenger, and perfect posture practically screamed it. He had been pleasantly surprised, though. The man ordered the first thing that he’d recommended, sipped it without complaint, and proceeded to occupy the corner stool for the next two hours. Besides the whole one-drink part, it was a nice change of scenery.

Suited men like him were akin to potted ferns. Silent and unmoving, but an improvement to the atmosphere nevertheless.

The man was pleasant at first, even cracking a few jokes. Eames had tried to get him to loosen up and perhaps order another drink or two, but he seemed set on his single drink. Then Eames had gone for a little flirting (he’d have to be blind to miss that lingering look) and he’d clammed up, though. Odd, but for all Eames knew, he could be a closeted bigot. So, he'd gently backed off and all was well.

As the night goes, Eames feels the comfortable routine of mixing and chatting begin to soothe his rattled nerves. He hadn’t felt prepared to go to work today, especially since it was special night Tuesday, but he hadn’t had the heart to call up Yusuf to sub for him again, as it was finals week at Imperial College. But now, he was realizing that it had probably been a good idea to come to the bar.

 Back in the storeroom, when he's fetching a gin, Ariadne slips in and puts a hand on his shoulder.

 "You okay?” she murmurs with concern.

 He gives her a smile. “I think so. You know how it is with breakups. I’ll be fine.”

 “Well,” she says, “if you ever need anything, you know I’m here for you, right? Movie night, life counseling, lunch, a quick shag...”

 Eames fakes a scandalized gasp. “How could you betray Yusuf like that?”

 She broke her serious countenance with a laugh. It really wasn’t as bad as it seemed, though, considering they had met on Tinder with some very memorable first words. Hooking up had been a running joke between the two of them ever since they had met and become good friends.

 She sobers after a moment. “You know though, right? Breakups can be tough, and Yusuf and I really want you to be okay. Please just tell me if you want help with anything, alright?”

 Eames smiled at this. “Of course. You’re the best, Ari.”

 And with that, she gave him a slap on the back and left. When he emerged from the storeroom with the gin, it really did feel like everything would be okay again.

It turns out to be a pretty good night. A crowd of his regulars turn up, he hopefully prevents Alec from getting his stomach pumped, and rakes in a healthy earning for a Tuesday night. Which, he thinks gloomily, will be very helpful in paying rent now that Nash is gone.

By the end of the night, he’s ready for some rest. Bartending might be invigorating, but it’s certainly not a restful job either. He’s ready for a very late dinner (he despises eating at work, so he’s feeling a little weak by now). At 2:30 am, he gently shoos out the remaining patrons and cleans up the bar. At 4:02, he’s walking up the curb outside his flat. At 4:04, he’s unlocking his front door to his distinctly not-empty flat.

 He’s about to turn around and check if he opened the right door when-

 “Eames!” cries the manager, surging forward to slap his back jovially. _Oh no,_ Eames can’t help but think foggily. _This must be something about the rent. Shit, it isn’t due today, is it?_

 That is, until he registers the suited person standing behind the manager. Upon looking again, Eames discovers that he is suit-man. Suit-man. One-drink-suit-man is in his flat.

He inwardly sighs. Just his luck. He does try to keep business and personal life separate, but it’s not like very easy when his job is to know people, many of whom proposition him while he’s at work. A privilege he had been considering taking regular advantage of, until...

 The man looks entirely unruffled. Dammit, there was one thing that Eames was looking forward to doing with Nash gone, and hardly a week had passed before his chance was destroyed. True, he could just go back to someone else’s place, but _really,_ he deserved at least one sex marathon night in his own flat.

“Mr. Harding, this is-”

“Michael. Michael Stroud,” suit-man says pleasantly, stepping forwards to offer his hand.

“Eames Harding,” Eames says as he bemusedly shakes it. Perhaps suit-man’s single martini is starting to kick in, three hours later, because this is not the curt man that that Eames had served this night. He’s fairly sure he wasn’t called Michael, either.

 “Yes,” the manager interjects cheerily. “If you haven’t any trouble with it, he’ll be your new flatmate. Is that alright with you?”

Eames would usually grin charmingly, make a witty comment about so-long-as-he-likes-80s-rock, and agree to sign the contract he can see in the manager’s hands. But Eames is really just so tired, and so tired of ass-kissing all night, that what ineloquently falls out of his mouth instead is, “Er.”

This seems to worry the manager, because it’s not like Eames at all to hesitate. Eames has gone through nearly a dozen flatmates over the past few years, and hasn’t once turned one down (except for the one who had the positively _awful_ body odor).

“Mr. Stroud’s a fine gentleman,” the manager rushes to add, “I’m sure the two of you will get on like a house on fire, and-”

“Of course, of course. Just hand over the contract already.” Eames sighs.

Arthur smiles charismatically. “I wouldn’t want to keep you up any later.”

Eames hasn’t even got the energy to wonder why the man’s up for this at four in the morning. He just scrawls his signature on the contract, and hands it back to the manager. He’s so tired at this point he wouldn’t care if Arthur - or Michael - were a mass-murderer. All he wants is for the night to be over, and it somehow doesn’t even cross his mind that a faster way to get rid of them both would be to say no.

The manager is delighted, and in just a few minutes, the contract is signed and set. He pats Eames on the back, shakes Ar-Mi- _dammit_ , _suit-man’s_ hand, and promptly trundles out the front door with the promise of getting his luggage over from the rent office in a few minutes.

Eames turns back to _Michael_ , unsure of how to behave. He’s always lighthearted and smooth around his customers, and Michael _is_ one of his customers, but he’s also his bloody _flatmate_ now, and he doesn’t really know what to do about it and dear god he needs to get a grip and just pull through tonight.

He says, “Uh, I’ll show you your room, if you’d like,” (of course he’d like to see his goddamn room, you idiot) and turns to walk down the hall. Michael follows him with a murmur of thanks.

Eames flicks the light on as Michael emerges into the room behind him. The spare room hasn’t been touched in months, and Eames thinks that Michael can probably tell. There’s just a bare mattress, (thankfully intact) grey-striped wallpaper, a rickety desk, a couple of wall sconces, and a powdery layer of dust over it all. Michael looks oddly pleased with it, though, so Eames won’t complain.

 “So, that’s it. All yours. Uh, I’m sorry, there’s only one bathroom, it’s right down the hall, first door on the left.”

 “Lovely,” Michael says. “Thank you.” He makes to set down his messenger on the bed.

 Eames is saved from the impending awkwardness (he should know how to deal with awkwardness after a lifetime of bartending, but apparently a 20-hour workday gets rid of all that) when there’s a knock on the door. The manager is back.

 “Your luggage,” he says, handing a modest suitcase to Michael. He pauses in the doorway, looks them both up and down as if checking that they haven’t gotten in to a fistfight in their first few minutes together. Finding them unscathed and in one piece, he sunnily bids them goodnight.

 Eames doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye though. He’s just grappling with the fact that he is in his flat alone with his new flatmate, Michael, who has _one single fucking suitcase,_ who is apparently intending to move in right here and now, who is also Arthur, who is fucking _suit-man_ from the bar. Who has taken off down the hallway with one single suitcase in hand.

Eames doesn’t know how much stranger tonight can get.

 He sighs, and follows him down the hall.

 Eames is incredibly relieved to find that he does indeed have a clean set of sheets in the spare room’s closet. He also digs out a reasonably clean pillow with a pillowcase because apparently Arthur doesn’t pack his one singular suitcase with pillows either. He’s trying to feel at least a bit irritated at this man for barging into his life at four in the morning, but he’s simply too mystified and exhausted to. Arthur is painfully pleasant, smiling and saying thank you. Eames almost wishes that he was the curt, dry Arthur he was at the bar, because this Michael honestly unnerves him more. At last, Michael kindly assures Eames that everything is wonderful, and Eames edges away with forced nonchalance.

 Dear god, this is embarrassing.

 He goes to the bathroom and makes quick work of washing up, just in case Michael will need it soon. As he brushes, he lets his thoughts wander in the comfortable ambient noise. That guest room has housed a lot of people, he thinks. It’s been the rich American university student’s room, the sickly accountant’s room, the well-dressed druggie’s room, and now it’s Michael’s room.

 Michael, whose Jekyll-and-Hyde personality Eames thinks he might just be imagining, and his one and only suitcase that has to be filled with either diamonds or cocaine for this to make any sense. _It’s just another flatmate, another person,_ he thinks tiredly. _It’ll be fine._

 Eames’s business isn’t to worry about people. It’s to make them drinks, listen to their stories, and get their tips. To occasionally live with them and even more rarely, love them. Arthur is a just person, so it’ll be okay, like it always has been. This is nothing new, he thinks. People are his _business,_ his very area of expertise.

Before he goes to bed, he sets his phone alarm for eight in the morning so he can properly introduce himself to Michael the next day. He can imagine it already. _“Hi, Michael. My name is Eames, but you probably learned that last night at the bar when I was hitting on you harder than a teenage boy at summer camp. I’m your new nocturnal flatmate. I probably earn less in a month than you spend on tie clips. Please keep your pet tigers on a leash in the house.”_

When his head hits his pillow, he blacks out almost immediately. That night, he falls asleep to his mantra of _I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine_ , running through his head, except this time, right before he drifts off, his brain quietly adds, _he will be fine._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The next chapter has Arthur and Eames getting used to each other, and after that enters Bond and Q. If you're craving some 00Q and can't wait until chap. 3, check out the prologue of this series.


	2. Kronos Awaits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April, 2010

**_They took everything from him. She had been his light, his life, and they had killed her._ **

**_It was a time for them to have a taste of their own medicine. See how it felt to watch their strength turn to weakness, their pride to fear, their cities to dust._ **

**_He would let them sleep now, as he gathered his forces. But not for long._ **

**_Kronos would have his revenge, and the world would cower when they woke up to his fury._ **


	3. Tartarus, Arizona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shuffles to the bathroom and opens the door to a blast of shower steam before he remembers that there’s a near-stranger showering inside, and he can’t just waltz in and take a piss. It’s too late, though

_Arthur_

 

Arthur is intrigued by this turn of events. Sure, it’s unexpected that the man that will be his flatmate also happens to be a bartender at his favorite bar, but coincidences do happen. The only reason they seem so astonishing is that nobody notices all the times when they _don’t_ happen. And this “Richard” Harding... “Eames” was probably his middle name, in that case. Arthur didn’t blame him - he’d rather go with that middle name than either the prior or latter.

After he hears Eames leave the bathroom, he goes in with the pouch of toiletries he took from the hotel. The bathroom is neat enough - a bit homelier than hotel standard, but he supposes that gives it… character. It’s far more interesting, too. As he brushes, he looks over the small array of bottles on the shelf. Deodorant, cologne, dental floss, hair product. The bathroom is a little cramped, but very clean. Excellent.

When he returns to his room, he considers it as well. It’s nothing fancy. A decent dusting and vacuuming will fix the it up to his liking. And then - well, he doesn’t really know. He’ll keep going. Checking on the dozens of corporate bank accounts that funnel a steady stream of funds into his dozens of corporate bank accounts, taking a hacking job or two when things get boring, going out in the city during the day. It’s a fine life, and Arthur has it all planned out. He’d have his way with London, eating and exploring and fucking his way through it until he gets bored. He frankly doubts that he ever could. Even so, he always supposed he could buy a jet and go somewhere else if he ever wanted a break from the weather. Nowhere too sunny, of course. Sunny meant Paradise Valley, Arizona. Or as he liked to call it: Tartarus, Arizona. The place that turned a kid into a monster.

_They had met at Robotics club. He was a senior. Tall, handsome, and impeccably dressed at all times. He came from one of the richest families in town, and his father’s trophy wife had passed on all the right genes. With his blue eyes and knifelike cheekbones, he was the picture of a modern aristocrat. Arthur had been a freshman at the time, so the four-year age gap seemed like decades, but he was so kind, so funny, so sweet, that Arthur could do nothing but fall for him._

_Robert was one of those kids who was clearly only in the club because of his parents, but he was a top member. Not because he knew anything, of course, but because his parents had probably provided a benevolent “donation” or two towards the club’s expensive machinery._

_But despite not knowing a squick about coding or technology, Robert led the team well. His cronies supplied him all the knowledge he needed, and he organized the team with such unerring leadership that won him the admiration of many. Robert had complimented Arthur as the only freshman to make it on the team, using words like “amazing” and “incredible.”_

_He had showered Arthur with praise, and the naive child he was, Arthur believed it. So he thought nothing of it when Robert invited him to his family’s golf club one weekend. It was nothing unusual for the residents of Paradise Valley, where gold flowed like the water. His parents had dropped him off at the range, delighted that Arthur was making friends with “lovely young gentlemen” that were “on his level”._

_It had been wonderful, of course, the first few times. Robert was charismatic and confident and gorgeous and just about everything Arthur admired. So when, on his fourth weekend over, Robert had casually asked him about girls, he admitted that he actually liked guys. And with that, it began. Robert did fantastic things to him - things that left him gasping for more and overwhelmed with pleasure. It didn’t matter than his parents would probably disown him if they knew - it just made it more exciting. Those weekends, strolling in the bright sun of the golf course and then lying with Robert in the hidden, grassy alcove in the trees left Arthur drunk with happiness._

_What a fool he was._

_But as time passed, things changed. Robert spent less time talking to him, ignored him entirely at school, and was less gentle with him. He would call more frequently, and once Arthur could drive, he found himself rushing over to Robert’s with only a minute’s notice when Robert gave the word. But still, Arthur pretended that he was fine. He pretended that he wasn’t neglecting his schoolwork to spend time with Robert. He pretended that he liked it when Robert fucked him so hard that he screamed from pain._

_He pretended that Robert loved him._

_He pretended and he lied, and when he could barely stand it any more, he pretended and lied some more. It just kept going, and going, and going-_

No. Arthur mentally shakes himself, and firmly shuts the door in his mind. It’s gone, it’s over, it’s history. He won’t tell himself it never happened, because it did, and that’s why he’s here now. He’s here now. Years later, on the other side of the world. Safe.  

Arthur strips his suit off and folds it, and then finds a shelf in the small walk-in to place it. He’ll buy a few more later, and drop this one off at the cleaner’s. He unlocks his suitcase (in which he’s installed, in his free time, an exploding lock coded to change it’s password every two days that can be unlocked by him and only him) and pulls on his sweats before crawling into bed. The bed’s really not all that bad at all. The light gray sheets are smooth and soft, and smell of strong detergent. They aren’t his though; he didn’t pay for them. He decides to get his own the next day and return these to Eames. He adds suits, clothing, sheets, and a pillow to his mental shopping list, and turns off the lights. He stretches out in the darkness and pulls the covers up under his arms. He plans which stores he will visit tomorrow, and which hacking project  he’ll work on the next day. It’s quite lovely, and he shuts down to these thoughts.

 

 ______________________________________________________________________

 

_“Hello?” Arthur can hear his voice, and hates the way it sounds, hopeful and scared._

_“Arty. You, me, my bed. I want you now.” No matter how much Arthur tried to resist it, he couldn’t stop the spike of arousal at Robert’s low voice._

_He struggled to force the word out. “No.”_

_“No? Don’t you want me?” His words was slow, dangerous. Daring Arthur to disobey him again._

_Arthur swallowed._

_“I - I have homework. It’s a really big project, and I didn’t work on it yesterday or the day before because I was at your place and it’s due tomorrow and-”_

_“Arthur, baby. It’ll be quick. I’ll make it good. I just want you so… bad…”_

_“No, Robert.”_

_Hearing his name seemed to set him off._

_“Arthur…” His voice is devoid of sweetness now, only danger._

_Arthur must be crazy, because it only makes him more reckless._

 

_“No, Robert. I have to do work. I can come over tomorrow, okay?”_

_“Arthur dear, are you ever worried about what would happen if the entire town knew you were a faggot? A dirty little cockslut? It’s a good thing I keep you so safe, isn’t it? But baby, if you want everyone to know, I can tell them, if that’s what you want.”_

_Arthur’s mouth went dry. This couldn’t be happening, what was he_ doing _-_

_“But - you -”_

_“Oh, you think they’d believe you? I know they won’t. You’ve told me everything. I know that your parents are just looking for a reason why you don’t have friends, or date. I know that you had a crush on Ricky for three years straight. I know everything, baby, and what do you know?”_

_Arthur felt everything stop. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with a defense or retort, but there was nothing. He had nothing on Robert, nothing at all._

_Robert seemed pleased with his silence._

_“So, Arty dear, wanna come over?”_

_“Okay.” And with that word, he felt himself giving in. Giving up._

_Three months later, late at night, when he got home and limped up to his bedroom, it hit him. All the lies he had told his family, his friends, and himself. They all pressed down on him in the darkness of his room, and he really felt like he was drowning, oh god he was drowning, someone save him._

_So like a good little boy, he woke his parents up. He was so sorry to disturb them, but there’s something I need to tell you, Mom and Dad, and it’s really really important. They listened patiently as Arthur poured his heart out about everything that had happened within the past year. And when he finished, he felt lighter. Like maybe his parents could make it all better and it would be alright. But his mother just turned to his father, and asked, in a heartbroken voice: “What did we do wrong?” His father had turned back to him and said nothing at all._

_The next day, he had a ticket to Texas for a three-month stay at a correctional facility. Because now, Arthur was a thing to be corrected- a mistake. He was terrified and scared by his parents’ silence, but also shamefully relieved. Texas meant no more Robert._

_It turned out that Texas was worse than anything Robert could have done to him. On top of every offense the abusive staff committed, every shock of the baton, he got a weekly video message from his parents. They smiled and encouraged him to “fight off the sinful grip of the Devil”, remarking with cheer on every horrible “therapy”, and how it would “cleanse his soul”._

Arthur’s eyes fly open. He lies there in silence, feeling the frustration build up behind his eyes. It comes back. With every new bed he finds, the memories follow him. It’s routine by now, but he doesn’t think he will ever get used to it. He doesn’t move as the vestiges of the dream fall away and breathes slowly, feeling his heartbeat slow back down. As he listens to his breathing, he tells himself the story again. He forces himself through the entire thing because that’s the only way he can go back to sleep without it playing over and over again. 

_There was only one reason that Arthur didn’t kill himself before it was over._

__It was so that he could put his suit back on and get on the flight back home. It was that sunny Arizona day that Arthur Henderson, sixteen, silently walked back into his house for the last time._ _

_He found his computer lying on his bed, just where he had left it, and bought himself a plane ticket to New York. He took no money from his parents' accounts. He wanted nothing to do with them any more. Instead, he stole his own, and escaped that night. A month later, under the tutelage of infamous hacker Dominick Cobb, he destroyed Arthur Henderson and created Michael Thornton. He was free now, and no one would ever tell him he was not._

Arthur takes himself through months and years in New York, to London, to Macau, to Berlin, to Sydney, and then back to London. He follows himself through hotels and theaters and cafés, past sunrises and sunsets. He follows himself in and out of Jules and Jaccarino, and up the steps of 202C. He follows himself through the dark hallway, into his new room. He sees himself lying there in the dark in borrowed sheets, and at last, he is asleep.

 

 ______________________________________________________________________ 

_Eames_

_BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEEP. BEEP. BE-_

Eames flings his arm out and slaps at his phone in half-consciousness for a few seconds until he hits the right button, and the godforsaken thing turns off. He peels his eyes open for a second and observes that the sun is barely up and it’s raining. It must be a Wednesday - an off day. Excellent. Why on earth he’s got his alarm set for eight, he doesn’t know. Eames rolls over and prepares to go back to sleep. After a moment, he opens his eyes again and squints suspiciously at the window. The skies are oddly clear. But the rain...

Michael.

Eames groans and hauls himself out of bed. He sits on the edge and rubs at his eyes. He’s yet to give Michael the moving-in speech and tour. He’ll need to do that.

He shuffles to the bathroom and opens the door to a blast of shower steam before he remembers that there’s a near-stranger showering inside, and he can’t just waltz in and take a piss. It’s too late, though.

“Mr. Harding, feel free to use the toilet,” a voice shouts over the patter of water.  “I’ll not be done for ten minutes.”

Eames blinks in astonishment. He has no choice now though, so he enters the bathroom. He notices that Michael has creatively folded up the sheet he slept on last night and hanged it on the hook, clearly intending to use it as a towel. Michael goes and fetches an extra towel, and replaces the sheet with it. He pauses for a moment, and then shrugs before ambling over to the toilet. Michael did say to ‘feel free’, so he empties his bladder before moving on to the sink. He washes up quickly before exiting.

Just as he starts the coffee, he hears the shower turn off and the door open. A pair of feet shuffle out. It’s odd to hear the sounds of another person in his flat when he’d been expecting to face the loneliness again. He finds himself embarrassingly comforted by the thought of having company again. He contemplates what to do for a few moments before settling on the usual - breakfast.

As Eames is trying to decide whether he should make Micahel eggs and which way to make them when he hears Michael pad into the kitchen. He turns around to find Michael appraising the kitchen with curiosity.

“Good morning, Mr. Harding. Or should I say, Eames?”

Talking. He can do that. “Just call me Eames. It’s my middle name.”

The man nods. “Of course. I know I introduced myself as Arthur last night, but please call me Michael.”

Odd, yes, but Eames supposes he can go with it. “Sure.”

After a moment, Michael adds, “Thank you for the towel and sheets. I will be... bringing over the rest of my things today, so you won’t have to lend me anything else.”

“Not a problem,” Eames says. “Coffee? I’ve got milk and toast, and I’m making eggs right now. You’re welcome to stock the fridge with whatever you’d like later.”

Michael pauses, looking uneasy before schooling his features back into their usual pleasant set. “Er, I don’t drink coffee. I’ll just have milk, I suppose.”

Eames smiles, his bartender’s response to unease kicking in. “No problem. Mugs are here. Feel free to use mine or add to the collection.” He opens a cabinet and pulls out a mug before nodding at the fridge. “And how do you like your eggs? If you want some, of course. Thought I might as well while I’m at it.”

The man looks almost alarmed. Eames reviews his own behavior for a second. He’s not doing anything unusual. Perhaps Michael’s just not lived with anyone before.

“Scrambled, please. You don’t have to, you know,” Michael manages stiffly.  

“I don’t mind,” Eames says as he cracks a couple of eggs into the pan and starts to poke at the yolks. “I’m not usually up this early, anyway, so consider this your moving-in treat.”

Michael smiles a bit, and then goes to the fridge for his milk.

Eames is seeing a trend here. No caffeine and barely any alcohol. The guy is either paranoid or has the lowest tolerance for anything that Eames has ever seen. When he’s done with the eggs, he brings his and Michael’s plates to the table, along with a fork for himself and a knife and fork for Michael. He looks like the type to eat his eggs with a knife and a fork, if not a napkin tucked into his collar, too.

Michael brings over the mug of milk he’s been sipping quietly for the past few minutes and tucks himself in to the chair. He tentatively picks up his knife and fork and regards the eggs. Eames considers offering him toast too, but he’s afraid the poor man will get an aneurysm if he’s offered anything more. However, as Eames starts in on his own breakfast, Michael seems to gain the confidence to start eating like a normal person.

“Have you shared a flat before?” Eames asks mid-way through the eggs, when he estimates that Michael is looking reasonably assured.

Michael chews thoughtfully, and then swallows. “Not really. Is it obvious?”

Eames chuckles. “Just a little. Don’t worry about it, I’ve lived in this flat for years, and you’re hardly the weirdest flatmate I’ve had.”

He blushes, and then frowns, as if trying to wring the pink from his face. “I apologize if I act… oddly. It’ll be a few days for me to get my bearings.”

Eames waves a hand dismissively. “Really, it’s all alright. I won’t mind unless you start dealing drugs at the doorstep or something.” He pauses. “Unless you actually do. In that case, please be subtle about it.”

It’s Michael’s turn to laugh. “You probably think my suitcase is stuffed with cocaine, don’t you? I assure you, I am not a drug dealer.”

 _Huh._ Exactly what Eames was thinking last night.

They finished the rest of their breakfast in silence, reminding Eames of last night at Jules. Except this time, they’re sitting across from each other, sharing a meal. It feels so strange to be back in some sort of routine of co-existence, and Eames would be lying if it didn’t smart just a little. He was resigned to, even welcoming of the impending loneliness. Yet now, there’s someone new in his life again.

 _Look at you,_ he thinks gloomily. _In less than a week, you’re living with another man._

Eames knows that it’s not like that and that it’s not _going_ to be like that, but it stings all the same. It’s at that moment when he decides that he’s won’t even consider starting anything with Michael. Sure, he’s cute, albeit in a flustered way, but that’s not what Eames needs. If anything, Eames needs to step back and do some serious soul-searching, considering that every relationship he’s had since high school has gone down in flames in under a year. Not to mention that it’d be a pretty shitty if he cocked it up with his new flatmate and ended up having to tiptoe around him for the rest of the rent period.

After breakfast is finished and the dishes are in the sink, Eames says carefully, “So. I think we need to settle some ground rules to make sure we’re on the same page.”

Michael leans against the countertop. “Okay.” Eames takes it as good sign that he looks more curious than nervous.

“I’m a pretty carefree guy, but try not to mess up the place too much. General hygiene, especially in the kitchen and bathroom. It usually works if we pick up after ourselves and roughly alternate doing dishes and cleaning. With food, I generally make a list on the fridge that someone gets every week, and then we split the cost. Or sometimes the easy way works, which is just buy what you want and eat what you want. Besides that, there’s just getting rent in on time, and that’s it. Everything else I usually figure out as we go.”

Michael listens attentively. When Eames is done, he nods. “Sounds good to me.” He glances at the dishes in the sink, and then moves towards it, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll start it offtoday, I guess.”

Behind Michael’s back, Eames smiles. “Great. Thanks.”

 ______________________________________________________________________

  
After breakfast is over and Eames considers his orientation duty complete, he goes back to bed. He probably ought to do something else with his off day, but it was a late night yesterday, and he had gotten up far too early this morning. He goes back to his room and crawls into bed once again. He doesn't realize that he's lying awake, listening to the kitchen sink run and the tinkle of dishes as they are slotted into the dishwasher. The sounds are comforting, but stop once Arthur is done.

 

A while afterwards, he hears Arthur go into his room. Fabric rustles and then, he hears the quiet clunk of shoes go past his door and fade away, punctuated by the opening and shutting of the front door. The lock clicks, and then Eames is alone again. He yawns blearily, and falls asleep soon afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit angsty now, but we might as well get that over with up front. From here on, expect lighter stuff and cutesy James/Q in next chapter! Also, plot: it will happen.


	4. James Comes Home

_Police dogs: alarmed._

_Informant: shot._

_Culprit: escaped._

_Wine cellar: locked._

 

“Looks like an interesting case to me. Man was working in the military tech department, could've been targeted for information. Pretty low-ranking though. Send these to M; ask if it’s worth a dispatch team. Personally, I’d send someone to check it out. It doesn’t look like an ordinary murder. You, look into his background with any extra personnel we have in the police and see if you can pick up any reasons why he might have been targeted. Keep the restaurant in lockdown until we have a plan.”

The minion jots down a note. “I’ll get right to it, sir.”

Q sighs. “Just Q, please.” New recruits were always so jumpy.

“Q,” she apologizes. “I won’t forget it this time, sir.”

Nevermind. Not jumpy.

With an innocently deadpan salute, she tucks the tablet under her arm and scurries off.

Q makes to sit back down, before noticing that there’s just a bare centimeter of liquid left in his mug.

“Miss Platt!” he calls. Halfway to the door, she turns around. He beckons her forwards, and then raises the mug to drain the rest of his tea. When he lowers it, she's waiting in front of him. Q holds out the mug.

“Mind refilling?”

She smiles as she carefully takes the mug. Tea-fetching was one of the most important and prestigious jobs of Q-branch employees, and was widely considered a mark of being in Q’s good graces.

“Right away, sir.”

Q sits back down as she hurries out the office, stifling a yawn. He would normally feel a bit guilty about leaving James alone at home to spend the night at MI6, but he was out on a mission right now. A mission, in fact, that Q has has heard nothing about since Bond crushed his earpiece and “misplaced” his radio. A mission that Q spent all of last night trying to track while coordinating two other missions and updating a few security walls that only he could maneuver through (or at least that he could do a sight faster than any of his minions). He yawns again and flexes his fingers before setting back to work. 008 was on her way home, and 005 had successfully slipped through the security checks of the government facility. All he needs to do now is set up a few alerts for any covert reports in their comms, keep a security-camera eye out for passing guards-

A steaming mug filled to the brim appears beside his hand, accompanied by a small paper bag. He lifts the upper edge of the bag to find a cranberry scone inside.

“Good morning, Q. I wonder who spent the night holed up in an office?”

“I wonder who decided to break all comms and made me stay up last night trying to find him in an overpopulated Indonesian city?” Q retorts as he lifts his mug for a sip and looks back to his computer.

He twitches as a warm hand curls around the back of his neck, but another hand grasps the mug, preventing a drop from spilling. The second hand lowers the mug back down to the table slowly before joining the first on Q’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry about that. They might’ve found it if they knocked me out.” James’s thumbs knead into the sides of Q’s neck as his palms massage his shoulders.

“Apology accepted,” Q murmurs, still scrolling down as his eyes flutter shut.

After a few moments, Q shrugs his shoulders in dismissal, and James goes back around to the front of the desk.

“It wasn’t just you last night though. 008 and 005 were in some pretty tight binds. They’re fine now, of course. Or at least, 005 should be fine if that guard…” Q stops, watching the guard take a second look at the agent, and then move on his way. He taps at the keyboard, setting up a monitor on the guard’s radio in case he planned on reporting anything later.

“005 will be fine.” He looks up at James. “I didn’t know you were going to be back so early. I would have liked to be home, but things got in the way. _You_ got in the way. I’m sorry you had to be alone though.”

“It’s fine. I was going to check for you here first last night, but Medical might’ve caught me.”

Q sighs. “You say it as if they’re out to get you.”

“I swear, they are. Those nurses can get pretty vicious, I tell you,” Bond remarks.

“The nurses are fine. That’s just what happens when you get into the habit of avoiding them after every mission. The tea they have down there is awful, though. I might accept that excuse if you drank tea, but you don't.”

“Of course you would think so. You have the exact same Earl Grey about fifty times a day. You probably think English Breakfast is made of piss.”

“The kind they’ve got there _is._ Oh, and speaking of tea, I hope you didn’t terrorize Miss Platt too much. I recall sending her off with my mug, not you.”

“Oh, she’s perfectly fine. Looked a little crestfallen at having her holy duty taken away, but she eventually saw sense. I even let her fill the whole thing up before taking it. Plucky little thing she is for a minion, though.”

Q smiles a little proudly. “She’s one of the most talented newbies I’ve ever recruited. Straight out of college, but performing like she’s been working for years.”

“Well it’s good to know you’ve got some competent underlings.” James leans in, mouth close to Q’s ear. “But we both know I’ll always been the _most_ competent one under you,” he whispers conspiratorially.

Q colors, and then shoves James away with a chuckle. “Go get debriefed. I know you haven’t yet. And I promise to try and be home early today.”

 

_James_

Q must have sicced Medical on him, because wherever James goes, he finds stern-faced nurses armed with M’s orders. He eventually gives in after an hour and half of hiding and moodily slinks into Medical. The nurses fall on him like sharks, desperate to get their hands on the infamous 007 before he runs away and doesn’t come back. He finds himself being frantically measured and monitored in every way possible. It seems that they are attempting to update all his medical information now that James Bond has miraculously entered the Medical wing at his own volition.

As a disgruntled looking man sticks about five different needles in his arm with ruthless efficiency, he figures he might deserve it, just a little. The blame does fall partly on Medical when an agent doesn’t heal up fast enough. He thinks of Q this morning and the dark circles under his eyes. He’s caused enough headaches for today.

Instead of complaining, 007 lies back and closes his eyes for as long as he has before someone peels back his eyelids to shine lights at him.

Medical proclaims (with some measure of surprise) that he’s mostly fine. They prescribe a list of iron-rich foods to compensate for blood loss, as well as a minimum of five days off to repair muscle damage. When he brings up the fact that he could just as well be sent out tomorrow, they give each other exasperated looks before pointing out that they report to M, too.

With that, James is out for the day. On the way home, he stops at a grocery store to pick up some things off the list for dinner. He found the fridge in a pretty pathetic state last night, and suspects that Q won’t buy real food, much less make himself dinner the next time James leaves.

By six, he’s carrying two bags of groceries up the steps. He notices a man struggling up the door to the neighboring flat with several packages.   

After a moment’s consideration, he drops off the groceries in front of his door and walks over to help. The man is making steady progress, carrying a few bags at a time between the cab and the door, but his work is considerably cut short  when he turns around to find James behind him. He starts, and James slips behind him to deposit the items beside the others.

“Thank you,” the man says with a hint of surprise.

“You’re welcome,” James replies, “I live just over there.” He nods towards his door.

“Oh,” the man says. “I’m Michael. I’ve just moved in. Nice to meet you.” He extends a hand. James shakes it, noting the firm, decisive grip.

“James.”

With a small smile, Michael turns to unlock the door, and James take it as his cue to leave.

 _So that Eames has got another flatmate_ , James thinks as he carries the groceries into his flat and starts unloading them. Richard “Eames” Harding had been living in the adjacent flat for a year or two before James had moved in with Q. He’d seen quite a few flatmates come and go from 202C, and more than a few quietly exit in the mornings. Eames was a friendly sort. They occasionally ran into each other in the early hours of the morning, when James came back from late nights, and Eames came back his bartending job.

James digs the clearly untouched cookware out from the kitchen cabinets and starts making dinner. He unwraps a hunk of chuck roast, chops it, and starts it simmering in a pot with a generous amount of red wine, as well as some yellow onion, oil, and beef stock. He then washes and dices several potatoes and carrots, and leaves them on the cutting board while the beef cooks.

The flat is quiet and empty, but the smell of cooking stew fills it. James goes to the sofa and finds a book among the few stacked on the coffee table and settles down to read until Q comes home.

James in engrossed in _Magnetic Fields_ when he hears the door open. Q steps in, drops his bag, and heads straight past James.

“No ‘hello’? I feel neglected.”

“You cooked,” Q calls from the kitchen.

“Yes I did. Medical said I was lacking in iron, and stew seemed like a good idea. I’ve got salad greens in the fridge and bread in the drawer too, in case you want some.”

He hears the lid of the pot open and close. “Smells great,” Q says. He walks back into the living room and slides between James’s knees and the coffee table to collect a kiss. He tastes like Earl Grey and exhaustion. James pulls Q down so that he’s straddling James’s thigh. Q sighs heavily and drops his head onto James’s shoulder.

“Thanks for coming home and getting food,” he murmurs to the back of the sofa.

“You’re welcome.”

Q’s stays with his head on James’s shoulder. Before long, his breathing starts to slow. James pats his back.

“Now, now,” James says sternly. “Don’t fall asleep until you’ve gotten some dinner in you. I hope you had something for lunch, at least.”

Q reluctantly peels himself off James and heads towards the kitchen.

“Platt left a sandwich on my desk when she thought I wasn’t looking.”

James finds him testing a chunk of carrot out of the stew. He seems satisfied, so James grabs a bowl and ladle and hands them to him.

Once James has made sure that Q is just about finished with his portion, he says, “I heard that Alec got back yesterday. I haven’t seen him, though. I trust he’s still in one piece?”

Q nods. “He is. Rather predictably, he went straight for a bar when he left the airport. I texted him to go home though. I doubt he listened, though.”

“You’d be surprised,” James says with a shrug. “Agents listen to you more than they listen to M. M tells us what to do and how to do it, but you tell us how to do it and come out alive.”

Q smiles into his stew.

 

  * \-       



The house is silent when Arthur gets back that evening. After the neighbor leaves, he’s stuck ferrying all the items to his room. Eames is likely gone, because a passing glance into the open door of his bedroom finds it empty. Arthur can’t help but be a little relieved. It definitely feels odd to be in a flat. He can’t help but feel like he’s somehow intruding into this ordinary person’s life. When it’s quiet and lonely inside, it seems surreal, as if Arthur’s walking around a movie set.

In his bedroom, he hangs in the closet the several sets of clothing he purchased. He leaves his underwear and socks in the cubbies. He then strips the sheets off the bed and takes out the bedding he bought, a rather boring set of plain white sheets, and fixes up the bed. He may have spent the last few years living in hotels, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten how to do it. It’s not too cold yet, so Arthur figures he’ll be fine at night in his sweats and under a flat sheet.

He grabs the borrowed sheets and pillowcase, and leaves them folded on Eames’s bed. He briefly observes Eames’s room while he’s there. The walls are barren, except for an E.S Posthumus poster pinned by the door and a rickety looking dresser leans against a wall. It’s not too neat, with a few pairs of pants lying on the ground, but it’s acceptably clean.

Arthur returns to his room, and surveys it critically. It’s still missing a few things. As for pillow comforters, he’s ordered them and they’ll be delivered soon. He still needs a desk, though. He finds a rusty ironing board in the closet that he opens up and moves in front of the armchair in the corner.  He then brings his laptop out of his suitcase and starts to set it up on the ironing board desk. Thankfully, the armchair has an outlet right beside it. He uncoils a series of cords from his suitcase, and soon, he has his work station. A cord runs from the wall into his suitcase, and emerges innocently from the other end to stretch up to the laptop on the ironing board. Perfect. He steps back to evaluate his handiwork.

Now, dinner. He enters the kitchen and pokes around a bit, finding the fridge and pantry stocked with generic foods. He’s not exactly confident in his cooking abilities though, so he decides on a simple sandwich made with the corned beef and cheese in the fridge. He assembles his dinner, wraps it in a napkin, and retreats to the security of his room to work on his latest illegal hire. Or as he likes to call it, checking his email.

FROM: G29_848nqHhH@devc8emor93222lwkm395m53ncwij3vdd001002320……

TO: [me]

SUBJECT:

WE ARE IMPRESSED BY YOUR PORTFOLIO. HOWEVER, WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE A LIVE DEMONSTRATION OF YOUR ABILITIES. IF YOU CAN FIND THE MESSAGE ENCODED IN THE SITE WE HAVE SET UP BELOW, WE WILL CONSIDER IT PROOF OF YOUR COMPETENCE. YOUR PROGRESS WILL BE MONITORED.

Arthur opens the attachment. It is a file format he has never seen before, with over a hundred pages of content. Some of it appears to be randomly sampled text, while other parts look like absurd mixtures of TCP and binary Golay, peppered with innocent-looking URLs.

Arthur grins to himself as he begins to pick at the file. He notices a simple screen share window pop up. The other side is dark, but it sends a clear enough message. His next employer is testing him with this problem, and watching him do it.

Three hours later, he finally finishes. The message reads:

CONGRATULATIONS ON PASSING THE TEST, MR. HENDERSON. WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS. WE WILL CONTACT YOU SHORTLY WITH YOUR ASSIGNMENT.

He freezes when he reads the message.

CONGRATULATIONS ON PASSING THE TEST, MR. HENDERSON.

Arthur Henderson was supposed to be untraceable from Michael Thornton. Dominick Cobb himself had helped him bury the records. Yet…

They knew.

A few seconds later, an email pops up.

FROM: G29_848nqHhH@devc8emor93222lwkm395m53ncwij3vdd001002320……

TO: [me]

SUBJECT:

INSERT THE ATTACHED PROGRAM INTO THE OPERATING SYSTEM L282 BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY. DO NOT ALTER THE ATTACHED PROGRAM. REPLY TO THIS EMAIL WHEN THIS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED. UPON OUR VERIFICATION OF SATISFACTORY WORK, THE NEGOTIATED AMOUNT WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO THE DESIGNATED ACCOUNT.

 _It’s alright_ , Arthur reasons with himself. It was inevitable that one day he’d find himself hired by hackers even more skilled than he. Grunt work has to be done, he supposes.

Despite his reasoning, he can’t help but feel a twinge of unease. It’s been a while since someone knew more than he did.

_Mr. Henderson._

He shakes his head. He is not the foolish boy he was anymore. He is a nameless businessman on the streets of London, and “Michael Thornton” on paper. He is an anonymous hacker paid fortunes by governments and criminals alike for his work. No matter what this employer says, it will have no effect on him.

He opens the attachment and begins.

An hour later, Arthur is starting to enjoy himself. It's not the world's hardest job, he thinks. It's actually odd that they're paying him so much for something so relatively simple.

However, as he works, he discovers that it isn't as simple as it seems. The program he's trying to hide is fairly small, but not being able to modify it in any way makes it a lot harder to disguise. He has to dig deeper and deeper into the other network to find the right place to put it. In addition, pesky security measures keep popping up, and there are so many of them it's like swimming through underwater spider webs. Whatever organization he's infiltrating must be pretty paranoid about security.

At eleven at night, he hears the door open. Eames can be heard quietly puttering about, and then the bathroom door clicks shut and the shower turns on. Arthur notes this, and the returns to work.

By one in the morning, he's become incredibly frustrated. After a few more fruitless attempts, he realizes that it won't do him any good to try any longer tonight. Reluctantly, he leaves his bedroom to wash up and get ready for bed. The job will have to wait until tomorrow.

_Eames_

Eames wakes up the next day at one in the afternoon. He hauls himself out of bed and nearly trips over the pile of grimy workout clothes from last night. He tosses them in the hamper, and then heads to the bathroom. On his way, he hears the rapid tapping of a keyboard coming from Michael’s room - the same tapping he came home to last night. Businessman indeed. Probably busy writing threatening emails to drug suppliers who were late with their shipments.

He shakes his head with a chuckle. Somehow, the bizarre image of Michael as a drug lord has stuck itself in his head. Or even better, he considers, a mafia boss. He mentally adds a homburg hat and a handgun, and the portrait is complete. The idea of quiet, polite Michael giving orders to anyone sounds ridiculous in his head.

He goes to the fridge, pulls out a fews eggs, a bell pepper, and some garlic, and starts to make an omelette. Halfway through whisking the eggs, he remembers to add a half can of mushrooms. The smell of the garlic simmering in oil must bring Michael to his senses, because by the time Eames is sliding his omelette onto a plate, Michael has emerged from his room.

Eames looks up and “Good morning” dies on his lips. Michael looks half dead. His lips are chapped, and the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes look like they’ve been colored in with charcoal.

Eames tries to remember if he ever saw the light go out in Michael’s room, but he can’t be sure.

“Did you even sleep last night?” he asks in horror.

Michael looks at him crabbily. “Yes, I did. Why would it matter to you?”

“Let me guess, for half an hour?”

“One and a half hours,” Michael relents. He sighs. “Is it that obvious?”

Eames nods. “You haven’t looked in a mirror, have you?”

 

Michael promptly leaves the room. Eames hears the bathroom door open. After a few moments, he returns. His sheepish expression might have been comical at another time, but here it just makes him look like an abused raccoon. Michael sighs and goes to the cupboard.

As he makes to leave the kitchen with the glass of water, Eames holds back an incredulous chuckle.

“I don’t suppose you’ve eaten, either.”

Michael pauses, and then continues out the room. Eames shakes his head as the man disappears back down the hall. It’s not his business to meddle, though, so he goes back to eating his breakfast.

A few minutes later, Michael comes out of his room wearing his suit. He goes straight for the door, but before he leaves, he goes to the kitchen and drops a slip of paper by Eames’s elbow.

“My number,” he says. “In case you need to contact me about anything.”

Eames looks up, surprised. “Oh,” he says. “Sure. Thanks.”

Arthur nods, looking as if he’s just given the signal for his own execution, and then leaves.

Eames fetches his phone and puts the number into his contacts. He thinks for a while about what name to assign him. Suddenly, the perfect idea comes to mind, and he grins as he types it in.


	5. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q, James, cars.
> 
> Arthur, Eames, texting.

_Eames_

Over the next few weeks, a pattern is established. Eames wakes up in the afternoon to Michael either gone or holed up in his room. They barely see each other throughout the day, and then Eames goes to work at six and comes back at one and goes to sleep. Michael leaves the house once or twice a day, hopefully eating while he’s out. Occasionally, a prepaid dinner delivery will arrive for him as well. He sometimes disappears for a few days at a time. Eames might have freaked out a bit when Michael first vanished for two days, but remembered to text him. Thankfully, he’d responded with a short, _I am well, and will be back within five days._ True to his word, he returned five days later, looking somewhat less undead than usual, and the usual routine resumed.

He looks like shit about sixty percent of the time but honestly, Eames is just glad he hasn’t started decomposing yet.

It’s just before he leaves for work when Eames realizes that he hasn’t seen Michael all day. The guy could have had a heart attack and died while he was in his room. The idea of finding a days-old corpse in his guest bedroom is just a bit unnerving, so Eames decides to check on him.

He knocks on the door to no reply. He knocks again, louder, and when only silence answers him, he opens the door and hopes for the best. Thankfully, Michael is still alive, and isn’t doing anything awkward. He sits at the ironing board, crouched over his computer. The curtains are shut, and the glow of the screen shines off his face as he types away furiously.

The open door spills light into the room, and when it hits him, he spasms as if he’s been burned. He whips around, bloodshot eyes flicking up, and when he sees Eames, he _growls._

Eames gets right the fuck out of there. There might be actual skid marks left in front of Michael’s door.

“Okay,” he mutters to himself. “I’ve got an actual vampire-zombie hybrid living in my flat.”

The next time, he decides to text Michael instead.

(1:22, _to Michael Mafioso_ ) **Are you still alive?**

(1:24 _to Eames Harding_ ) _Yes._

(1:25) **Okay. Just checking.**

(1:26) _Do not worry. I will alert you if I die and will arrange for the removal of my body._

(1:27) **Nice to know.**

(1:27) _I’m very courteous about that kind of thing._

(1:29) **Have you eaten today?**

(1:30) _I ordered delivery yesterday, as you well know. A lot. I am not hungry._

(1:31) **I carried that box to your room. It was lighter than a half cup of water.**

(1:33) _Fine. I haven’t eaten today._

(1:34) **I knew it**

(1:37) **_Do you want anything for breakfast? I’m making eggs._**

(1:38) _The usual, I see._

(1:38) _Not really._

(1:39) _I will probably go out for an early dinner._

(1:40) **Fair enough. You’ve only had my eggs once though. Are they bad?**

(1:41) _They are just fine. I just don’t want to inconvenience you._

(1:43) **Seriously? If I’m making breakfast already, you do know that it takes like five seconds to just increase the amount of what I’m making?**

(1:44) _I guess._

_(1:44) f(2)-f(1) <.25f(1), b=7, m=.5 for range (0,10]_

(1:45) **Um**

(1:46) _Sorry. I did not mean to text you that._

(1:46) _It was an accident_

(1:47) **Did you just… write an equation for the rate of my omelette-making?**

(1:47) _No._

(1:48) If x>0 and x10, f(x)=x/2+7

(1:48) _That’s the equation._

(1:48) _It’s a terrible oversimplification._

(1:49) **Oh, you’re some kind of genius, aren’t you?**

(1:50) **Is that why you spend all your time at your computer?**

(1:52) _Maybe. Is that a bad thing?_

(1:53) **Wait, do you do bitcoin mining or something like that? Because that would make a lot of sense.**

(1:55) _Something like that_

(1:56) **Cool**

(1:57) **I couldn’t imagine making a living off a computer though.**

(1:58) _Well I am._

(1:59) _I couldn’t imagine making a living off of pleasing other people._

(2:00) **You make me sound like a prostitute.**

(2:01) _Well you make me sound like a 9-5 office worker._

(2:03) **I mean, you basically are, right? Except that instead of from 9 to 5 it’s just 24/7**

 

_______________________________________________

(2:09) _What’s that burning smell?_

(2:14) **Shit, those were my eggs. They’re in the sink now.**

 

(2:15) **Now you just sound smug**

(2:16) _Serves you right for calling me a 9-5._

(2:17) **Well you called me a prostitute.**

(2:18) _Did not. Freudian slip, anyone?_

(2:21) **Seriously though, do you want eggs? It’s been a long time since dinner, and I’m making more since you destroyed the first batch.**

(2:22) **Humor me. Have some of the Omelette 2.0 to make up for the death of Omelette 1.0**

(2:24) _Fine_

After that, omelettes in the afternoons were added to the routine.

 

 

_James_

 

“Left! Fuck, left!”

“I know,” Q hisses as he jerks the wheel and the car swerves among indignant honks. Bond’s head thunks against the wheel before ricocheting back to hit Q’s stomach. “Shit, sorry.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” James says, looking up Q’s lap as he steadies himself.

“We can wait until we get home,” James tells the underside of Q’s chin, “if you can’t- if you don’t want to drive like this-”

“I hear a challenge,” Q chuckles darkly.

“Oh, fuck,” James mutters. “It’s probably a whole lot less likely to cause a sodding car crash if we just go home first. Not to mention that I can make it far more… enjoyable at home.”

“Cautious isn’t a good look on you, Bond,” Q says coolly, even as he colors.

A lorry goes by, and Q glances up towards it. The driver gives him a smirk and a thumbs-up.

There’s no turning back now.

“Just - fucking, keeping going, alright? I can put the car on auto if needed.” Q says.

James sighs against him, which probably has the opposite effect to the one intended. “Please tell me this wasn’t all a ploy to test your new self-driving car software.”

“It’s not,” Q says defensively. “It works just fine.”

“Sure it does.”

“My software has far surpassed Google’s ham-fisted attempts at navigation.” Q says loftily. “Unlike their engineers, I don’t rely on pathetically limited mapping and other networked vehicles to identify blind spo-”

“I don’t know if I should be more surprised that you’ve already passed one of the biggest tech companies on their own concept in a few weeks,” James interrupts in amazement,  “or that you’re still fucking hard when you talk about it.”

Q laughs, but his laugh soon trails off when James gets back to work.

 

 

_Eames_

 

Jules and Jaccarino is priming itself for another night of business when Eames’s phone buzzes. The establishment is still empty, and the rest of the staff are just coming in, so he pulls it out of his pocket to find a text from Arthur.

(5:24 _to Eames Harding_ ) _I have a question._

(5:25, _to Michael Mafioso_ ) **What is it?**

(5:26) _It’s about our neighbors at 203C_

(5:26) **What about them?**

(5:27) _Are they involved?_

(5:28) **Involved in what way?**

(5:28) _You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?_

(5:29) **;) yep**

(5:30) _Please never do that again_

(5:31) _And yes, I mean sexually involved._

(5:32) **Let me guess, they were shagging on the front door again?**

(5:32) _NO_

(5:33) _But almost. “Again”?!?_

(5:33) **XD don’t worry, they’ve never actually done that. At least I don’t think so. Not in the six years I’ve lived here.**

(5:34) _Oh. Alright_

(5:35) _They’ve always lived there?_

(5:36) **Yeah, I think it was just Taylor’s flat for a while, and then one day this big buff guy moved in and they’ve lived there since. I think they’ve been married for like three or four years.**

(5:36) **You don’t have a problem with it, do you?**

(5:39) _No_

(5:41) **Ok.** _  
_

(5:42) **So what made you ask about James and Taylor? Just curious.**

(5:43) _Oh_

(5:43) _well_

(5:43) _They kind of stumbled out of a car ten minutes ago and the blonde one slammed the other against their door and and started snogging him while unlocking it._

(5:44) _I’m pretty sure they left their car unlocked too, so I don’t know what to do about that._

(5:45) **woah, graphic**

(5:46) **Yeah that’s semi-regular for them. Don’t mind it**

(5:47) _Ok_

(5:47) **Were you just watching?**

(5:48) _I was just leaving the flat_

(5:49) **Yeah, sure. Don’t worry, I get it.  I’d watch too.**

(5:50) _Seriously. I was just leaving. I didn’t know to tell them about their car or not. I didn’t want to interrupt._

(5:51) **Aren’t you an angel**

Eames is waiting for a reply when Ariadne sweeps by and tries to steal a look at his phone.

“ _Ari_ ,” he reprimands with false anger. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop on private conversations, you know.”

She leans away innocently and crosses her arms above her apron. “Well, you _have_ been texting for the past thirty minutes. I couldn’t help but get curious.”

He sighs. “I’ve already finished setting up. I’ll be there in a minute, alright?”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to tell you off. Just wondering who it is you’re talking to,” she gives his phone a meaningful look.

“A friend,” he says. It doesn’t seem to be quite right though, so he adds on, “kind of. Not yet. Maybe?”

“Sounds… nice,” she remarks, clearly baiting him for more details. When all he does is nod, she thankfully seems to take the hint. She doesn’t press further, and just give him an encouraging smile before leave. He checks his phone to find that Michael hasn’t replied yet.

 

(5:53) **Ok, bar’s opening soon. Gotta go.**

(5:54) _Bye_

 

 

_Q_

 

Q doesn’t call it stalking. He calls it _research._

Of course, his new neighbor might turn out to be someone perfectly ordinary, but he could just as easily be an assassin sent to kill two of MI6’s most valuable assets.

 _Michael Thornton,_ he types into his personal search engine. Qoogle, as he’s dubbed it, can worm it’s way into even the most hidden corners of the internet, as well as all the government files he had the clearance to access (and perhaps a few that he didn't).

This sort of background check might seem paranoid for any ordinary citizen, but it was routine for Q.

At first, the results are conspicuously ordinary. Michael A. Thornton, twenty-eight, grew up in a middle-class family in south-east England, attended King’s College for business, and became CFO of some boring manufacturing company.

Upon further scrolling, Qoogle unearths some much more interesting information that contradicts his show story.

Michael Thornton’s real name is Arthur Henderson, and he originates from Paradise Valley, Arizona. He is currently twenty-six, not twenty-eight. He was the only child of a wealthy couple and exhibited early talent in computer programming and robotics. He attended school in Paradise Valley until the early spring of his freshman year, when he was withdrawn by his parents. He vanished off the map for three months, after which he and his parents were found dead in their house after gunshots were heard. The gun was found in his father’s hand, and the deaths were determined as two homicides and one suicide.

Only, Arthur had obviously not died, and had shortly created “Michael Thornton”, under the cover of which he had been living for over ten years.

The man who is now living in the flat across from him was also none other than a hacker steadily rising to notoriety in hacking circles. “Point Man,” they called him, for his ability to infiltrate and destroy any network from a single point of weakness

 _Fascinating_ , Q thinks. This has got to be the most interesting discovery he’s ever made while checking on his neighbors.

He has enough evidence to convict the man of a number of crimes, he muses. Despite what he has found, though, he doesn’t really know his new neighbor at all. What would he do about it, anyway? Report him and watch him go to jail (or death row)? The man hasn’t done anything of real importance yet. Just some harmless money-snatching and hired hacking. That kind of person would always exist, so tossing one in jail would hardly make a difference.

Plus, hired hacking was how Q himself had lived for a bit, and if he’d been tossed in a jail cell back then, he’d never be where he was now. He settles with setting up an alert on “Michael’s” activities, just in case he ever does do anything truly dangerous.

Until then, Q will leave him be. Live and let live, he concludes. Or if the born-again hacker eventually faces the consequences of his actions, live and let die.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to merlywhirls and her lovely text-form fics for inspiring me to try it too - it's a lot of fun. 
> 
> The chapter title is a reference to the children's novel Ian Fleming wrote that features a magical car by that name.


	6. Vigilant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goldeneye, 1995
> 
> Alec Trevelyan: Good luck with the floor, James. I've set the timers for six minutes, the same six minutes you gave me. It was the least I could do for a "friend".
> 
> Natalya Simonova: What does he mean?
> 
> James Bond: We've got three minutes.

 

_Q_

 

“Q,” a voice says.

He glances up. It’s Platt, and she just called him Q.

Something must be wrong.

“What is it?” he asks.

“The dispatch team at the wine cellar couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, but they did the usual autopsy and sent us the information. It looks really ordinary to me. I’m not a doctor, but it’s pretty clear that the man died of a gunshot wound to the head. There wasn’t a clear motive, so I started looking for connections.

“I was sorting through the police’s archives and I found a pattern of minor government workers disappearing for no obvious reason. I found three others: one in the same department who died of a gunshot wound to the head in the past year. There were two more in the year before that. The pattern is trace enough to be ignored, but too big enough to be a coincidence. I have the report here… I thought you might want to look at the data.”

Q narrowed his eyes. “Send it to me.”

She pulled out her tablet and tapped at it for a few seconds. “Done.”

He pulls up the charts she emailed him. She’s graphed the data alongside other homicides, sorted by occupation and cause of death. Highlighted in orange are the five dots. In the graph of all homicides, they seem to just be random points. But in the stratified graphs they start to stand out more and more.

“Good work, Miss Platt,” he says with approval. She bows her head briefly in acknowledgement. (and perhaps to hide a proud smile)

“Thank you.”

“I’ll take this up to M and set out an alert for any similar cases. If you can find me the profiles of the victims, that would be good. Age, family, work hours, everything.”

“Immediately, sir.”

He smiles. “Also, inform Miss Zhou that she has been assigned to help to compile this data. I expect that with your combined minds, you’ll be able to root out any more patterns.”

The woman smiles outright this time. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down, sir.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, miss, or I’ll assign Dunlop as your partner instead. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss your opportunity to… _collaborate_ with Miss Zhou.”

Platt blushes, a rare occurrence. “I’m sorry, Q. I won’t do it again…”

She pauses and then adds “..sir!” before skipping away elegantly.

Minions.

 

_Arthur_

 

FROM: cornonthecobb@gjke389djwkvcd9e338d333llfl000003dddwDgDVBWOIUGG9eg….

TO: [me]

SUBJECT: Hello

Hi Arthur - or do you prefer Michael?

It’s Dominick Cobb. It’s been a while since I taught you how to fabricate identities, along with all my other tricks. How has freedom treating you? I’m still in New York, of course, but you’ve probably been all over by now. I’ve heard that you’re making quite the name for yourself in the freelancing circles. I recently caught wind of a job that I thought you might be interested in. Just some inside work on behalf of the greater good and all that. I can’t give you the details right now, but I can tell you that it has to do with Fischer Morrow, and it’s not to their benefit. Email me back if you’re interested. If you aren’t, email back anyways. I’d like to catch up with an old student.

-Dom

 

Arthur hasn’t looked into anything from his hometown for a long time. The memories plague his dreams enough, so he steers clear of any urge to check up on the people of his past. At the mention of Robert’s family business, though, he can’t help but let it pique his interest. Reluctantly, he searches _Fischer Morrow._

It turns out that the conglomerate has a near monopoly on the energy business. Oil, gas, hydroelectric, solar, they own it all. Their only remaining possible competitor, Proclus Global, isn’t expanding fast enough to compete for much longer. Soon, Fischer Morrow will far outstrip Proclus, and have an unshakeable grip over the world’s economy.

Arthur can see why someone would put out a freelance job against them.

More interestingly, recent news articles speculate on the failing health of longtime executive, Maurice Fischer. It looks like upon his death, Fischer Morrow is poised to be handed over to his son, Robert Fischer. Photos of Robert and his frail father at press events pepper the news articles. Arthur forces himself to passively skim his eyes over the photos with the younger Fischer in them. The man means nothing to him now. He doesn’t care.  

The freelance job seems simple now. Attack Fischer Morrow at it’s weakest point during power-transition. The inexperienced Robert Fischer will fail to keep the conglomerate together, and the entire network will crumble. Corporations like Proclus Global will reap the benefits and restore balance to the business world.

The idea of going up against such a powerful business is tempting. The idea of watching Robert fail, after all these years, is even more so.

Arthur’s not bitter, he tells himself. It’s just that dickless bastards like Robert Fischer who think they’re untouchable and spend their entire lives stepping on other people’s backs deserve to fail on an epic, global scale sometimes.

And for the greater good too, of course.

 

FROM: [Arthur H/Michael T]

TO: [me]

SUBJECT: Re: Hello

Dominick,

I have been enjoying freedom. I finished a very interesting job just a week ago, actually. I have noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of higher-level offers recently. It’s all thanks to your mentorship when I first ran away to New York. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. I’m in your debt, Dominick.

Your guess was right. I am quite interested in the job. As you may know, I have no love for Fischer Morrow (or any corporation, for that matter). Feel free to send me the details.

-Arthur

 

_Q_

Over the next two weeks, three more employees of the Royal Ordnance Factories are found dead or missing. One is a janitor. Another is a secretary. The third was a royal navy officer on the _HMS Vigilant._

The navy officer must be what really gets M’s attention. She summons Q to her office that day. She is stoic as usual, but Q thinks he can see a certain set to her jaw that isn’t usually there. He thinks of Platt, a few weeks ago and her unusually serious disposition. It’s not just him that’s sensing something wrong with these deaths.

“Q.”

“Ma’am.”

“Someone’s targeting these people for a reason. They were careful, choosing from the lower ranks, people who wouldn’t be missed. But they’re getting sloppy now. These people all died while on duty, and that officer, Matthew Bradshaw, was higher up than the other victims. The killer is afraid that these people will live. There’s something bigger planned.”

“You’re saying this a conspiracy.”

“I’m saying this is a threat.”

Q nods. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to set up every alert possible. It’s entirely possible that the killer will go for something you can detect with our systems. The police are investigating the murders right now, but they don’t have the resources or clearance to monitor military computer systems. Set up tripwires in all the departments the dead worked in. Monitor communications of suspicious persons close to the victims. Everything.”

“Yes, ma’am. May I ask… The _HMS Vigilant_ is one of the _Vanguard_ -class submarines. Could this be related to the Trident Programme?”

M narrows her eyes. “Let’s hope it’s not.”

Q pulls up the information he was on the submarine. “It docks in two days for refueling and restocking. This could be a good opportunity to get a first hand look at the scene and investigate the death.”

“I’ve been in contact with the captain and doctor on the submarine. The doctor doesn’t have the tools to perform an autopsy, but he says he can’t find any outer damage that suggests a physical encounter. He says it doesn’t look like a murder yet, but he can’t rule it out.”

“So it’s a murder,” Q says.

“Exactly,” M says. “I’m sending a team of our doctors there to meet them when the _Vigilant_ docks but I think we need agents there. The killer could still be onboard. When is 008 due to be back?”

Q checks on the agent’s last communications. “She’s at a critical point in her mission. Negotiations won’t be done for the next four days at least.”

“006?”

“He’s on his way from Brazil to South Africa. His flight lands in an hour.”

“When he gets there, get him on a flight back here. The other mission can wait. We’re dispatching him to Portsmouth, as well as 007.”

Q stiffens a little, but under M’s searching gaze, he doesn’t think it shows.

“Yes ma’am. Standard kit?”

“Yes. Try to make sure they don’t lose the earpieces this time. We need to stay in contact.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Good. Report back once 006 and 007 are on site.”

 

_James_

James walks up the wharf, stopping behind the blond figure looking out towards the murky sea. The pre-dawn air is humid and cold, and wind whips it past James’s face.

“006.”

“Trevelyan,” the man replies. “007.”

“Bond.”

James steps forwards to stand beside Alec. “Watchdog business. My favorite.”

“Of course,” Alec deadpans. “Trust MI6 to send their two best double-ohs to watch fuel get poured into a great hunk of underwater metal.”

“A great hunk of underwater metal that may be harboring an assassin or two along with dozens of thermonuclear weapons.”

“True,” Alec concedes. “We should start watching.”

They turn to face the ocean, and watch the submarine rise from the water along with the morning sun.

 

_Q_

Two mornings after Q’s meeting with M, a minion bursts into his office, breathless.

“We got a message from the _HMS Vigilant._ They returned to base just last night to refuel and restock, and as commanded, no crew have been allowed off. There’s a missing man, an officer by the name of Hector Davies.”

“Shit,” Q mutters. “Send me everything they’ve got on him. I’ll try to find him.”

Moments later M’s face pops up on his screen in a video call.

“Officer Hector Davies, find him now.”

“On it,” Q says, opening Davies’s file. He sets all law enforcement in the vicinity of Portsmouth on alert for the young seaman. The man’s twenty nine, and has been on the _Vigilant_ for two years and in the Navy for eleven. Q sets up facial recognition on security cameras and watches as dozens of cameras under MI6 control (whether they know it or not) file into his feed, spanning outwards from the port.

“Q-branch,” he calls. The minions all snap to attention. “Watch the feed, I’m streaming it to your computers. Track this guy’s credit card and ID, and anywhere he might have been seen last.”

There are a few affirmations of “Yes, Q,” but most of the them get right to work without a word.

The messenger minion looks slightly awed at the way the entire branch has jumped into action within thirty seconds of his message. Without looking up from his typing, Q lifts one hand to poke the minion on the shoulder while the other hand continues.

“That means you too, Reynolds.”

The minion stammers an apology before rushing off towards his desk. Q notices that M’s video call is still on, and it looks like she’s on the phone, grilling the police at Portsmouth. He’s vaguely sympathetic towards unfortunate officers, but tunes in to catch any information.

Thirty minutes later, a minion sends him a blurry security camera photo of a figure wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie over his head, walking outside a storefront. Rain obscures the image, but Q’s program has him tagged as Davies, based off height, posture, and profile.

“Found him,” Q says to M as he pulls the cameras from all the nearby stores from his feed to verify, and sends them to the minions’ computers to comb for the man. They’re too close to lose him now.

 

_James_

“Crasswell and Jacobs streets. He’s there.” M’s voice barks into James’s ear. He looks at Alec, who has clearly received the command as well. The two of them close their umbrellas disregarding the downpour, and head for the car immediately. James lets Alec do the driving. He’s loath to admit it, but Alec was always the better driver. Of cars, that is. James claims the title for piloting.

“I’ll take the west side,” James says as Alec pulls into the street and parks.

“Alright,” Alec says, climbing out. “East it is for me.”

James reaches to the backseat and pulls out the two damp umbrellas, tossing one to Alec.

“Keep this. You’ll stand out less.”

Alec takes the umbrella and opens it with a nod of thanks.

With that, James turns and starts down the street, checking each storefront. He hears the clack of Alec’s shoes fade away as they go off in opposite directions.

By the time James is almost all the way down the street, he’s still found no trace of Davies. There’s almost no one out, seeing as the deluge has only gotten heavier, so he’s been forced to enter every shop and check. It’s definitely getting him a lot of looks, which are not helpful for staying undercover. Judging by the silence from his earpiece, Alec hasn’t had any success either.

Just when he exits the eleventh store, his earpiece crackles to life. “006, 007. Q speaking. The police service have just alerted us that Davies has called the emergency line. He’s in the Tesco one block to your left, 006. Bond, go the way 006 did. Down Crasswell, right after Temple Street.”

 

_Q_

The Portsmouth police called in a minute ago, saying that Davies had turned himself in, in a way. He called the police from a Tesco, but is apparently refusing to give details. M orders the police not to go after him, which makes no sense until Q joins the call currently going on between Davies and M.

“Mr. Davies, I am from MI6. We know you’re in the Tesco on Crasswell Street right now. Do not attempt to leave the building,” M says. She’s moved to Q-branch to keep an eye on the action. She’s on the phone, while Q has headphones on, listening to the conversation.

“Thank god,” the man on the other end whispers. “They’re coming for me - they can hear me, they can hear us. Don’t say anything… important, okay?”

Q can hear the faint sounds of shopping carts squeaking and people talking. M pauses and glances at Q before carefully saying. “We understand. What are you in the store for?”

The man breathes a sigh of relief at M’s understanding. “The same thing that my friend Matt - Matt Bradshaw took a n-nap for. It’s very, uh tiring. I’m very tired too, and I think my… wife needs me to go home soon and I - I,” the man breaks off. His breathing sounds fast and shallow on the other end. Panic. If he doesn’t stay on the line, they could lose him and all the information he has.

Q speaks. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath and continue. We need to know, officer.”

His Navy title seems to calm Davies down. He takes a halting breath, before resuming.

“I have a-a shopping list I took from my wife. It has some important ingredients she needs for the surprise dinner party she’s holding for our family. Can you pick up the list?”

The list has to be intelligence, probably enemy intelligence. With a sinking feeling, Q realizes that the likelihood of spies on the _Vigilant_ is all but set in stone by now. Q glances at M and begins to mouth “inte-” but she nods immediately, cutting him off.

“Yes, we can. Where is it?” she says into the mic.

“I’m just going to leave my cart here beside the, uh, cereal aisle. The cereal aisle, okay?” His voice grows a little stronger. “The cereal she wants is between the Crunchy Bran and Shredded Wheat on the end of the aisle, the second to bottom row.” There’s a pause, and a few cereal boxes rattle.

“Good. My two _sons_ are coming to pick up some beers soon. They’ll pick up the cereal for you,” M says.

There’s a broken sob from the other end.

“Thank you, but they’ll be too late,” he whispers. “I have to...go. I’m really tired, I’m probably going to… go home and take a nap.”

The officer’s whisper trails off at the end. The line goes silent for several seconds, and then Davies gasps shallowly.

Q freezes a frame from the single security camera at the Tesco’s entrance. Five men are entering in quick succession, hands in pockets. He points M to the pictures.

“They’re here,” the young seaman says, voice shaky with fear.

Gunshots ring out and the screams begin.

 

_James_

James sprints through the rain. He can see the Tesco up ahead, and just almost misses Alec as he disappears through the doors. He pushes harder, rainwater soaking his feet as he runs. He’s long discarded the umbrella.

“007, 006, are you listening?” It’s M this time.

“Bond, affirmative.” he pants. At the same time, he hears a faint “Trevelyan, affirmative.”

“Davies has stolen intel from the killer, and he’s hiding in the Tesco. He says he’s left it at the end of the cereal aisle, between the between the Crunchy Bran and Shredded Wheat, second to bottom row. The killer has five armed men after him that just entered the store. Your mission is now to retrieve the item. Forget Davies. Try not to get killed. Q is merging your earpieces, and will continue to provide guidance.”

“Yes, mum,” James says, dodging a bike rack as he nears the Tesco.

“Understood,” he hears Alec’s distant voice say at the same time. Then there’s a click and their audios are connected.

“006?” he asks.

“Trevelyan. 007?” Alec replies.

“Bond. Entering store.”

Just as he gets to the doors, he hears double gunshots ring out in quick succession from his earpiece and from inside the store. The earpiece sounds half a second off from the real gunshots, an artificial echo.

He bursts into the chaos, holding his gun. Frantic shoppers stream past him in their desperate push for the door. Screams and shouts ring out and people scramble to get out of his way when they see that he’s armed.

When he gets out of the crowd, he sees the black barrel of a gun rise from behind a display of candy bars, and immediately drops to the ground. A shot sounds barely a millisecond afterwards. He rolls over and crouches low to the ground behind the produce lanes. He steals a glance around the adjacent aisle to glimpse the back of a dark-haired figure crouched at the far end of the of aisle. He loads the gun, leans round the corner, and shoots. The figure falls.

On the other side of the store, he hears another shot ring out. He pulls his shoes off and leaves them on the floor. Then, he grabs a can and tosses it in the one way while sprinting the other. He crouches down again behind another display. He doesn’t know how many unfriendlies are in here, but he’s betting there’s more than one.

_“006, 007, I’m blind in this store. They’ve only got one security camera covering the checkout counters and entrance. I’m trying to get into the hostiles’ comms.”_

It’s silent now, the shoppers and staff having all fled. He’s got to find the target item before the others can get it. Hopefully Davies has hidden it well.

Cereal aisle. He glances up at the signs hanging from the ceiling. He’s at the snacks aisle now, so he can’t be far. He risks another surfacing to glimpse the the row of signs at the end of the aisles. Luckily, he sees no people. He’s only a five aisles away from the cereal.

A voice speaks quietly from the meat counter from behind him. He drops and spins, gun raised. Luckily, before he shoots, the echo in his earpiece registers. It’s Alec.

“Come out,” he whispers. Alec slowly emerges in a crouch from behind the counter, hands raised to his shoulders, and James exhales slowly.

Alec slides up to him and opens his mouth speak, but James holds a finger up to his lips. The store is eerily quiet now, and they don’t know how close the nearest gunman is. Alec narrows his eyes, and then spells _sign?_ with his hands. James curses the fact that neither of them ever learned more than fingerspelling. He nods, and then signs back.

_K_

 

_Q_

Whoever these gunmen are, they’re well prepared. Q figures that they’ve got radios or earpieces on, but they’re well hidden and hard to crack. He informs 006 and 007 quickly, and then turns off his mic. He leans into his computer and pushes himself to concentrate.

It take eight minutes for Q to get into their audio communications, twice the usual. The gunmens’ voices are hushed, and he cranks up the scratchy audio.

_“-losive...the location.”_

_“Alright, start…. my word… two, three, now-”_

_“stay…. watch…. of in six min-”_

_“two more hostilities ente- ….. in…”_

“ _-ostage preferably……. risk escape-”_

As he listens, his expression grows dark. M raises a brow. He sends the the live audio feed to R and S before taking off his headphones and looking to her.

“They’re going to blow up the place in six minutes. We’ve got to get 006 and 007 out of there. If they don’t get out in time, we lose both of them and the information.”

He watches M ruthlessly calculate the new data, deciding if the intelligence is worth the risk. At last, she passes her verdict.

“Give them three.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Royal Navy is in possession of four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines: the Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance. Each is armed with up to 16 UGM-133 Trident II missiles. They were introduced in 1994 as part of the UK government's Trident nuclear weapons programme.


	7. Vanguard

_James_

_I-_ Alec begins to spell, and then a Q speaks in their earpieces.

“They’ve got a bomb set for three minutes. If they’re blowing up the place, they’re desperate to get rid of the intel. You two retrieve it and get out in three minutes,” he says tersely.

It also means, James realizes, that the only reason they’re still in here is to capture Davies, or Alec and him. They don’t want to get the intel back. They want the intel gone, and hostages to interrogate. One look at Alec’s face tells him that he knows it, too.

 _I go first_ , Alec signs, gesturing to behind the counter and down towards the other end of the store, and then mimes running and shooting with one hand behind his other hand. _Shoot men up to cereal aisle._ He then points at James and gestures to in front of the counter. _Go after me, get item. K?_

He frowns and starts to sign, _too-_ before Alec grabs his hands, essentially silencing him. Alec looks him in the eye and shakes his head. He signs, _best way. must do. quick._

James grits his teeth in frustration. Alec means to be the vanguard, to do the shooting and take the bullets while James safely gets the intel. It’s a fucking stupid plan, but he can’t think of anything better. Only one person is needed to retrieve the information, and protecting them is the only thing the other can do. Whatever they do, the need to do it fast before they lose their safe position and before the whole place blows up. There’s no time for plotting.

Alec stares James in the eye and removes one hand from his grip on James’s. _Trust me,_ he signs.

“One minute forty,” Q says.

At last, James nods in consent and gently removes his hands from Alec’s grip. He grasps Alec’s hands, and then pats him above the heart.

_Good luck._

Alec nods sharply, and holds up three fingers before crawling back behind the counter. James rocks to the balls of his feet in his crouch and prepares to run.

Alec’s whispers,“one,” (“one,” says earpiece-Alec) “two,” (“two”) _“three,_ ” ( _“three,”_ ) and then he’s darting down the aisle.

Bond waits two seconds before taking off after him. Sure enough, by the time he’s reached the second aisle, he’s heard three gunshots. He flies past another two aisles, glimpsing a body on the floor in passing, and he’s at the cereal aisle. He drops to his knees and begins scanning the bottom row. Q must hear the slight rattle of cereal boxes, because he speaks in his ear.

“Crunchy Bran and Shredded Wheat. One minute.”

Bond pushes the two front boxes apart, and sure enough, an innocuous-looking USB drive is lying behind them. He pockets the drive and slowly rises.

At the sound of a gun loading, he freezes.

He looks to the far wall, behind the pastry display, where the sound came from, and then drops flat to the ground. He’s cornered, with the shelves on either side. There’s no way he can get up and run for the end of the aisle without the gunman getting a several good shots at him. But it’s too late, so running close to the shelves is the best he can try. Hopefully he doesn’t get shot somewhere vital. He presses his palms to the floor in preparation to jump up and run.

Suddenly, a figure barrels past the the pastry display, tackling the gunman behind it.

“Run!” an unfamiliar voice yells, and then gunshots sound and Bond runs. Behind him, cereal boxes explode and cereal scatters to the ground.

The voice shouts incoherently once more and then is silent. He spins around behind a checkout counter, and then looks out carefully from behind. The stranger, who must have been Davies is lying on the ground motionless. A man wearing a green jacket steps over his body and slowly advances forward, eyes casting left and right.

James rises up and shoots him, then ducks back down as the body hits the ground. He’s counted three gunmen down, which leaves another two. A clatter echos in his earpiece, and he hears the faint murmur of voices from Alec’s side.

“007, is the intel in your possession?” M asks.

“Affirmative. Three of the five gunmen are down, 006, status unknown.”

He crawls to the opposite end of the checkout counter and looks out. He spots the backs of two pairs of legs at the far end of the store, and leans farther out to look.

Opposite to the two men, Alec has his back to a wall. He’s cornered and unarmed, with the gunmen pointing their weapons at him. They’re speaking, but James can’t make out what they’re saying.  He has a feeling the gunmen don’t care who dies, as long as no one leaves with the drive. There’s only one thing they could want from Alec at this point - information.

M speaks in his ear, “Run.”

Information, which would have to be extracted. He doesn’t move.

“006 is currently in unarmed negotiations with the two remaining gunmen.”

“We know. This is an order, not a suggestion, 007. Run.”

He aims at the closer gunman. It’s far, but not impossible. If he could just down one of them…

There is a crackle in his ear as the mic is moved.

“James,” Q says urgently. “You have twenty seconds to get out of blast range. _Go._ ”

He can’t shoot. Alec is right behind them. It’s too far, the chances too small. If he lets them take Alec, Alec might escape the bomb. But is torture any better than death? Alec’s mouth is still moving. He’s trying to buy himself time, but Bond doesn’t know what kind of time it will get him.

 _Trust me,_ he had said.

“Go!” he shouts, his voice echoing through the deserted store,  hoping it will do anything to distract the gunmen. He shoots out the lights over their heads before sprinting for the door. The shot sounds in his earpiece, as so does the shatter of the fluorescent ceiling lights.

He makes it out into the rain, and runs and runs. He could have gone for minutes or hours, with the rain soaking to his bones, but he stops dead in his tracks once the silence registers. It’s surely been more than twenty seconds. He turns back to find that the building still stands innocently.

“Keep going,” M says shortly. Her voice seems quiet, drowned out by the rain and silence. He’s still standing, staring at the intact store.

The bomb hasn’t gone off. Alec might still be alive. He could come running out the doors any second. For a second, James is paralyzed with hope.

“Goddammit, Bond, _run!_ ” she barks, so he stumbles backwards and mechanically starts to run again. Thirty seconds later, an eardrum-shattering explosion rocks the ground. He skids to a stop on the wet pavement, and when he looks behind him, the store is up in flames.

He presses his earpiece to his ear and listens hard, but M is silent. No echo of the explosion registers. He swallows drily.

“006?”

 

_Q_

M watches the security camera become awash with light, and then black out. The next closest cameras show the the windows blow out, and then the walls explode outwards in a cloud of debris. Despite the rain, flames emerge from the rubble, licking at the collapsed framework.

“Get Bond and the intel back here. Find 006, dead or alive, and bring him back. The local police will retrieve the bodies and take care of the rest.”

Q clicks over to Alec’s earpiece.

_Connection lost._

“Understand?” M asks.

“Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Aftermath

FROM: cornonthecobb@gjke389djwkvcd9e338d333llfl000003dddwDgDVBWOIUGG9eg….

TO: [me]

SUBJECT: Re: job (3)

 

Arthur,

Alright, the client should be sending you your assignment soon. I’ve been told to tell you the address will be thh8cr890v4039ivi@43993fjrrr2cm3393911055940555055321....

 

FROM: cornonthecobb@gjke389djwkvcd9e338d333llfl000003dddwDgDVBWOIUGG9eg….

TO: [me]

SUBJECT: Re: job (4)

 

Arthur,

Any issues with the job? It’s been a while since we started.

 

FROM: cornonthecobb@gjke389djwkvcd9e338d333llfl000003dddwDgDVBWOIUGG9eg….

TO: [me]

SUBJECT: Re: job (5)

 

Arthur,

 Great work. I took a quick look, and it looks perfect. You’ve come so far. I’ve just gotten paid - just checking that they’ve followed up for you, too.

 

FROM: [Arthur H/Michael T]

TO: [Me]

SUBJECT: Re: job (6)

 

Dominick,

I’ve been paid. Thanks for the job.

 

 

FISCHER MORROW CRUMBLES UNDER SHOCKING CYBER ATTACKS

 

7:35 PM ET, Wed November 23, 2012

 

Houston (CNN) - As of yesterday evening, energy giant Fischer Morrow has announced that it has fallen under vicious cyber attacks targeting proprietary data and customer information. The credit card information of tens of million may have been stolen, and Fischer Morrow’s private systems have reportedly vanished.

 “There’s nothing on the computers, they’re wiped blank. It’s like they’re brand new, not even any operating system,” said a current employee at the Paradise Valley branch who wished to remain anonymous. The Houston headquarters are currently closed to the press.

Companies are rushing to fill the gap as most Petrotec gas stations have been shut down. Gas prices have risen to over $20 a gallon overnight causing widespread panic. Experts remain divided on whether other companies will be able to compensate on such short notice. Proclus Global, Exxon-Mobil, and Sinopec have released statements so far pledging to funnel all resources into delivering energy to those in need. 

After possibly the most damaging corporate cyberattack in history, many are asking “How?”, “Why?”, and most importantly, “Who?”

This attack has hit Fischer Morrow at a critical time. Longtime CEO Maurice Fischer has reportedly been in poor health for the past year, and recently announced his intentions to pass the company on to thirty-three year old son, Robert Fischer. The budding CEO has been quick to step up during crisis, however, doubt remains as to whether or not he will be able to perform under the pressure.

“We do not yet know who or what is behind this attack,” the young heir said in a press conference this morning. “We are all working our hardest to identify the attacker and to resume supplying energy to those that depend on us as soon as possible.”

 

  

_Eames_

Eames wakes up feeling curiously blissful. From the narrow gap between his blackout curtains, a rare ray of afternoon sunshine falls in a caramel ribbon across his bedsheets. The air feels crisp and cool - perhaps he should turn up the heat - but he is warm and content underneath the softness of his comforter.

The familiar hum of traffic is layered with the overtones of the coffee machine sputtering away.

A mug clinks against the countertop. Coffee is poured, and distant footsteps are placed carefully across the floor.

He rubs at his eyes, and then hauls himself out of the delicious warmth of his bed. He makes it out his bedroom door in time to see Arthur about to enter his. At the sound of Eames’ door squeaking open, Arthur stops and turns around. He’s holding the ugliest cup that Eames owns - a cloudy-looking glass thing that hasn’t even got a handle. It’s also roughly the size of a flowerpot, and filled to the brim with coffee.

The fucker doesn’t even look remotely guilty. He wears the expression of someone who has been annoyingly interrupted in their daily routine, rather than that of someone who has been caught outside their lair for the first time in two weeks. Carrying a liter of black coffee.

Eames groans, closes his eyes, and leans against his doorframe.

“Do you need something from me?” Arthur asks diplomatically.

Eames peels himself off the wall and blearily makes his way down the hall towards Arthur. He puts his hands around the urn of coffee that Arthur’s holding, and pulls gently.

“Just…” he sighs, “give me that for a second.”

Arthur is dragged a step closer to Eames before he gives up and lets Eames have the thing, clearly unwilling to spill a precious drop in a tug-of-war.

Eames turns around, hands starting to prickle from the heat of the cup, and goes to the kitchen. Arthur follows him like a lost puppy.

Well, Arthur follows the coffee like a lost puppy.

Eames carefully sets the cup down on the breakfast table. Then, he fetches another mug and pours half of it Arthur’s coffee into it.

“You’re going to have a seizure if you have that much at once.”

Arthur opens his mouth -

 “I don’t care how much you’ve been having, there is no way a guy who’s alcohol tolerance is one drink can handle that.”

 “It’s-”

Eames pulls a wrapped sandwich from the fridge that he was going to have before work and slaps it onto the table.

“I’d-”

 “Have your fucking coffee. And eat that. My mug better not have a single drop missing when I finish my shower, because that half's mine now.”

Arthur looks up at him, inscrutable. Eames doesn’t miss the sideways flicker in his gaze.

“Don’t even think of touching the machine.”

Arthur favors him with a bloodshot look of indignance.

“I wasn’t going to. You don’t need to bother, Eames. Taking care of me isn’t your job. I’m just f-”

His complaining falls on deaf ears. By then, Eames is closing the bathroom door and drowning Arthur’s voice out with the shower.

 

_Arthur_

Arthur waits until the bathroom door shuts to fall silent. He doesn’t know why Eames thinks he needs to bother. It doesn’t make any sense; most of the time, Eames leaves him alone. Then all of a sudden, when Eames sees him outside his room, he starts acting like Arthur’s good health is valuable to him by doling out food and threats in equal measure.

It’s pretty fucking annoying.

Arthur picks up his unfortunately half-emptied glass and drains almost all of it before he realizes he needs some to wash down Eames’s sandwich with. He stops and spends a few seconds feeling the hot coffee course down his esophagus. Then he unwraps the sandwich and gets started. It’s two slices of a fluffy, nutty bread, stuffed with julienned carrots, zucchini, avocado, and a frankly heavenly sauce. It settles solidly in his stomach. Incredibly, it manages to stay there without attempting to escape back up.

Arthur tips down the last mouthful of coffee that he reserved, and then sits still for a few seconds, feeling surprisingly alive. Food with coffee is something he will have to try more often. Maybe even as a break while working.

Then he remembers the last chunks of code he was fitting together. He hurriedly gets out of his chair and quickly throws away the wax paper wrapping and washes the cup before hurrying past the running shower to get back to his room.

Several hours later, during a lull in his work, he suddenly remembers the morning. Before he can think too hard about it, he sends a text.

 

(6:57 pm _to Eames Harding_ ) _Thank you_

 

 

_Q_

James is silent when he goes into Q’s office. Q doesn’t need to ask to know that he hasn’t been to M’s or Medical or anywhere else yet. He just stands there and doesn’t quite meet Q’s eyes. 

Q tries to catch his gaze, to get those flat blue eyes to focus on his. He tries and tries, and then gives up at last. Instead, he tries to speak. His voice crawls out of his throat and the words just sort of fall out of his mouth and crumble in the air.

“I’m looking,” he says. 

What he means is _I haven’t slept all day and all night, and I’m going to find him, I’m going to look as hard as I can and as hard I ever have, and I’m going to break every encryption in the world if I need to. But I need to look for_ you _right now, I need to see you and know you haven’t vanished with him too._

James’s eyes lock on to his for a moment. His jaw tenses and his Adam’s apple bobs, and there’s a flash of something terrible and painful in his eyes before they go blank again.

“I’m sorry,” James says.

Which means _I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him from being clever and selfless and claiming a better death than I ever could, and I’m sorry you had to count down to it, and I’m sorry if I have to go but I’ll come back to you, whether you find him or not, I promise._

He goes back to his computer and James leaves the office. 

Later that day, Platt slips into the office holding a large box. She stands there, as awkward as Q’s ever seen her, until he pulls off the headphones and pauses the recordings he’s running. His ears feel oddly naked without the constant stream of sound waves spilling in through them.

“Yes?” he says hoarsely.

“M sent me with a message,” she says carefully. “She said to-to, ah, leave the grunt work to the staff and concentrate on identifying all the possible culprits from the data from the new forensic evidence.”

Knowing M, that’s probably not quite verbatim.

All the same, remember the notification he got half an hour ago, something about forensic data, and M’s intentions are clear. As usual, she wants him to stop “footage-picking” and start data crunching. At that moment he feels a wave of frustration and anger crest over his fatigued mind, and it’s hard to concentrate on anything else. 

He wants to yell that none of the minions are skilled enough to do the searching like he does, that they can’t do it nearly at fast, but at the same time he knows that they’re all plugging away at it already, and he’s the only one, the _best_ one to start on the new data.

He almost does, in fact, but his throat refuses to obey out of dehydration, so he ends up wordlessly twitching for several seconds.

Platt’s eye are wide, and she stands there holding the box as Q wrestles with himself. 

At last, he wrenches himself away and resurfaces, mentally cold and sopping wet. 

“What’s in the box?” he snaps.

“It’s some of the evidence from the bomb site that just finished going through analyzation. The techs sent this down in case you wanted to look at it-”

Absolutely lovely. Physical tokens of his failure.

“I’m not a bloody forensic scientist,” he growls. “But I do know it’s hardly been a few hours, they can’t possibly be done with it. Send it back. Tell them to analyze it more. And tell M that I _understand,_ ” he grits.

Platt’s grip on the box tightens. “Yes, s- Q. Immediately. Do you... “

She breaks off and shoots his dry mug an imploring look. He deliberately returns his attention to his computer and turns his back sharply, everything about him surely screaming “You are dismissed.”

She flees, box and all. 

His eyes skate over a few sheets of data and he fiddles with them a little before remembering the headphones lying on his desk. He pulls them back down over his head and restarts the recording.

As he listens, he opens his desk drawer and opens a plastic bottle to shake out two small, white pills. He swallows them dry. He ran out of tea at least two hours ago, and he thinks he might be sick if he has anymore, so these are the best he can do if he wants to stay awake.

 

 _Eames_  

It’s already pretty late when James enters the bar. Eames tries to hold back his surprise. He always thought that James made a point of not going to his neighbor’s bar. He still remembers his drink, though.

“Vodka martini?” he asks.

“Straight whiskey,” James replies, and Eames obeys. Clearly the man is in a state. It’s fifteen minutes past twelve, and he’s alone in the corner tipping back whiskey. Why he isn’t just doing that at home is a testament to how unsettled he must be.

Around two am, customers begin trickling out, either to go home or to move on to a club. James remains where he is, sipping at a tumbler of whiskey that Eames doesn’t particularly care to remember the number of.

When closing time arrives, he’s still there. Eames shoos out the remaining employees on his shift, assuring them that he’ll take care of everything.

In all honesty, he’s just afraid of what might happen if someone attempts to usher James out. He’s never done anything, per say, but something about James has always made Eames feel a little unsafe, despite his quiet demeanor.

Once Eames has gotten to wiping down tables, he really can’t stand it anymore. James doesn’t even appear to have noticed that the bar is silent and everyone but him is gone.

Eames doesn’t know what to do. The blank look in James’s eyes suggests that attempting to speak to him will be useless, but he tries anyways.

“Sir?”

Nothing.

“James?”

After a long moment, James turns and looks at him.

“We closed twenty minutes ago. I’ll be around for another thirty minutes maybe, but then I’ll have to lock up and leave.”

James nods absently and returns to his drink.

“So how’s Taylor?” Eames tries.

“Fine. Overworking, as usual,” James replies blandly.

Eames gets back to wiping tables. He promised James thirty minutes, so he decides to mop the floor while he’s at it. The floor could wait a day or two, but he hasn’t anything else to do.

He’s at the far side of the bar when James says something quietly.

Eames turns. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

James pauses. “He used to go here,” he says clearly. “I always thought that he was just a little attached to the place.”

“...Taylor?”

James looks at him evenly. Eames somehow feels as if he’s being evaluated for trustworthiness.

“No. You remember him. Tall, blond hair, drinks vodka like water. No sense of self-preservation.”

“Alec.”

“He must have liked you a lot to tell you that.”

Eames chuckles, and resumes mopping.

“I think he just tolerated me. Is that why you’re here? Because he comes here?”

“He comes here, or he used to come here. Only he knows the difference now.”

Eames pauses, mop deep underneath a table.

“Has something happened to him?”

James laughs, short and harsh.

“Nothing _happens_ to him. Alec, he does whatever he wants. I don’t try to keep track of him, but it would be nice to know something for once.”

Eames slides around a table to get to the next. “Did he leave?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s not easy not knowing,” Eames agrees, trying to sound as if he has the vaguest idea what James is talking about.

“You’d think I’d get used to it,” James mutters. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he could be rotting in a ditch or worse, being fucking-”

He falls silent after the outburst. With a quick glance, Eames recognizes the look of a man beginning to regret what he just said.

He deliberately keeps his eyes on his mop and his tone even. “When my mom left, I didn’t know anything about why for a year.”

He catches a movement in the corner of his eye. James has turned to look at him, the first time he’s properly looked at him all night.

“What was it?”

“She died. I was seventeen. She just didn’t come home one day. It wasn’t until almost a year later that my employer contacted the police and coerced them to look a little harder.”

“And they found her?”

“Yeah. Some body that had been unindentified. They said she drowned.”

“And then what happened?” James asks quietly, almost more of a statement than a question.

“They let me see her. Well, pictures of her. And then they gave me the cremated ashes,” Eames says flatly.

“I’m sorry for you loss,” James says, and even Eames can hear how foreign the words must be on his tongue.

“I was still a minor when she died. By the time any officials realized my mom was dead and I had no guardians, I was an adult. Orphan for a year, I guess.”

“If you’re an orphan, you’re an orphan for life. Dead people don’t come back.”

“Yeah.”

Eames feels something building, as if James is about speak. He doesn’t look up from his mop, in case it disrupts James’s thoughts. He waits, and waits, but nothing happens.

“At least, most of the time they don’t.”

There’s a clink of a glass hitting the table, and the sound of clothing rustling. Eames looks up from the small puddle of dried liquor he’s been scrubbing at to find James standing and the glass empty. James straightens his jacket, pulls a couple of notes from his wallet and leaves them on the table.

“Thank you,” he says. He steps out from behind the table and begins weaving his way to the exit. “Apologies for keeping you up late.”

“No problem,” Eames says. “Have a good night.”

The door slowly falls shut as James strides out into the night and disappears from sight.

 


	9. 100%

 

 _Q_  


It’s been a month, and nothing. Q has been chasing the case every single day, with no results. It’s not supposed to work like that - MI6 can’t afford to lose their shit every time a double-oh vanishes. And Q tells himself he’s not losing his shit; goes through discombobulated lengths to convince himself that there’s some sort of dire tactical importance in finding 006.   
  
He’s a fucking joke.   
  
_James_  
  
James can tell he’s falling apart, because despite common misconception, Q is not, in fact, superhuman. James knows that Q can only keep up the twenty-hour days for so long, and a month is pushing it. He won’t insult him by saying that, though. 

  
It’s getting hard, though. James agreed to trust Q to know his own limits long ago, but he’s been afraid. He’s afraid of the fact that most days, Q leaves before he does, and gets home later than he does. James makes a point to make dinner and leave it out for Q. He also makes breakfast and leaves it in the fridge at night. It’s not enough though, because nothing will be enough for Q until he finds Alec.   
  
_Alec,_ James thinks, _get the fuck out of wherever you’re hiding. I don’t care if you’re in one piece or eight, as long as it stops Q. You took your fucking self. You don’t get to take Q too._  
  
James feels helpless, and he hates it. He feels just as helpless as he did when he was running from the explosion like a fucking dog. There’s nothing he can do but get out there and search every inch of the earth for Alec, and there are just a few rules against that.   
  
“Who is your loyalty to? To queen and country, or a dead man?”  
  
He can tell that M has this sentence on the tip of her tongue, and refuses, if only out of spite, to give her the chance to drop it. He would suggest that if they gave him a mission, he’d at least be occupied. Somewhere along the train of command, though, some shithead has decided that 007 is not yet fit for duty.

He’s not the one who's missing, dead, or possibly both, so he doesn’t understand why he should be treated as if he is.   
  
So during those weeks, he does the only thing he can.   
  
The first time is six days after the mission, when Q has slept what must be about fifteen cumulative hours. James enters his office, locks the door, and pulls Q out of his chair by the front of his shirt. Q puts up a struggle, snarling and shoving at James, but he hasn’t the heart or strength to do it properly. James easily shoves him down on his back on the desk, and holds Q down with one hand while undoing his slacks with the other. Q just looks up at him, wide eyes framed by dark circles.   
  
James takes his time after that, taking Q apart slowly with his mouth and his hands. He pushes at the last of Q’s consciousness, depriving him time after time. Q’s hands shake from where they grip the edge of the desk, and he eventually gives up, falling back. It’s brutal, and it goes on for a long time, but it’s what he has to do.   
  
And it works. Q passes out nearly right after he comes. James grimly rises from his knees and wipes his hands on Q’s discarded pants. He carefully picks up the limp mess that is Q, and carries him to the sofa in the corner. James can’t help feel a little angry that the sofa already has a crumpled blanket and pillow on it.   
  
He pulls the blanket up to Q’s neck, and nestles the pillow securely under his dark curls. Then he puts his own jacket back on and straightens his clothing out. He digs around in Q’s desk for a while before finding a pen and a sheet of (crumpled) paper with some complex schematics on the front, but a blank back.

  
When James leaves the office, a sign reading “DO NOT DISTURB AT ALL COSTS - QUARTERMASTER SLEEPING” is taped to the door. He gives everyone he sees on his way out the death stare, and they get the message. He later hears rumors that Q sleeps for a whole seven hours.   
  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
James  
  
Thankfully, after he shows himself into M’s office and tells her that he is entirely willing to perform a mission, any mission, she takes notice. Finally,  five weeks after the Portsmouth fiasco, he finds himself with a mission. It’s painfully easy - something any agent could do, but he’ll take what he can get.   
  
The morning before his flight, he visits the Quartermaster’s office for his kit. When he enters, he expects the usual black case to be resting on Q’s desk for pickup. Perhaps Q won’t even look up from his computer and expecting him to take it and go. He already knows the contents - standard equipment that he’s unlikely to need for a mission as simple as this one.  
  
When he enters, Q stops typing. He actually stops, and looks up at James.   
  
“007. I have your kit.”

James nods.  
  
Q pauses, face going blank for a moment, before he reaches under his desk and produces a black case. After just a moment’s hesitation, he rises from his chair and round his desk to personally present James with the case.   
  
James takes the case.   
  
“This case contains the standard kit. Walther PPK and radio.”  
  
He sounds like he’s reading from a script. His gaze flickers from James’s face down to the black case in his hands, and then back up to his face.  
  
“And please, try not to get yourself killed.”  
  
And despite Q’s flat, unemotional tone, that’s the moment when Bond realizes what he’s seeing. Q is seeing his second double-oh agent leave. He’ll have no one after this, not until Bond comes back. If Bond doesn’t come back, he’ll have no one at all. 

  
And he knows, he knows that this is something that Q is aware of every day - that the people who are closest to him are the people most likely to be ripped away. He knows that Q is used to it, but he imagines Q will only ever truly make his peace with it when both 006 and 007 are dead.   
  
Q doesn’t know if he’ll see James ever again. Despite all the odds James has prevailed against, he can’t prevail forever, and the forever James has fought to build could stop any day. Q doesn’t want to say this though, so he’s desperately trying to memorize this moment.   
  
Q isn’t staring at James. He’s staring at a dead man.   
  
James sets the case down. There are so many things he could say. He could say “Thank you,” and leave. He could try to reassure Q that he’ll be fine, that he’ll be back in just a few days, but he knows that would be a blatant offense to everything they’ve ever agreed to. So instead, James says, “You know,” because Q has always known _everything_ , and kisses him.   
  
The skin of Q’s neck feels fragile under his palm, but the tendons stand strong and supple. Q doesn’t reciprocate, just stands there stiffly for a long moment. Then he parts his lips to breathe James in, and grabs him and yanks him closer, until the lengths of their bodies are pressed together.  
  
Then Q lets go and pulls back, leaving the taste of over-steeped Earl Grey and desperation on James’s tongue. Q takes a whole step away, and James understands that he must leave now.   
  
He picks up the case, feeling the weight settle back into his palm, and leaves.   
  
Q doesn’t move from where he is until long after James is out of sight.   
  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
  
  
FISCHER MORROW CYBER ATTACKS FAKED TO HIDE FRAUD?  
  
9:35 AM ET, Tue December 7, 2012  
  
As of last night, new leaked information may shed light on the Fischer Morrow cyber attacks.  
  
Or, if it is proven accurate, the Fischer Morrow “cyber attacks”.  
  
An anonymous Wikileaks contributor has released what appears to be secret correspondence. These emails and finance reports suggest that Fischer Morrow executives have been engaged in serious commercial and financial fraud for the past eight years, funneling money into the pockets of a handful of executives under various disguises.  
  
Most shockingly, the emails suggest that the young Robert Fischer, the new CEO of Fischer Morrow, has been coordinating his rise to power for several years already, and lies at the center of the fraud circle.   
  
One email reads:  
  
[fraudemail.png]...  
  
  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
Q  
  
It’s a good day when James gets back. Granted, the whole mission only takes him four days, but it’s surprisingly comforting for an agent to complete a mission without any major disasters occurring. Unless you count the handicapping of a corrupt and hostile government.  
  
He sails through Medical and actually debriefs on time before forcing Q home. It’s a late night, but nevertheless, they curl up together and try to go to sleep. It’s almost like before.   
  
“You know,” Q says, “I’ve been thinking of getting Platt promoted.”  
  
“Platt, as in Clarence Platt? The redhead with an attitude and a fetish for your tea mug?”  
  
Q laughs into the pillow. “Yes. That one.”  
  
“What is there to promote her to? I was under the impression that it was either minion or Quartermaster.”  
  
“R. We haven’t had one in a while, but I think it’s about time.”  
  
“Sounds good to me. Maybe you’ll let her touch the neverending pile of work you think only you’re smart enough to do?”  
  
“She’s plenty smart,” Q murmurs. “Just can’t trust anyone else with that stuff.”  
  
“Well, it’ll be good for her. Might lift the morale around here. God knows we need that.”  
  
Q doesn’t reply. He’s fallen asleep.   
  
James closes his eyes with a smile.   
  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
_Eames_  
  
Eames in a hundred percent fucking done with Michael. Honestly, he’s tried not caring, tried to ignore the incredibly unhealthy, and borderline suicidal lifestyle choices of his flatmate, but this is pushing the limit.   
  
And the problem is, he hasn’t the faintest idea what to do about it.   
  
And maybe it’s because it’s been a long Tuesday night, and he’s had a couple of dickish customers, hardly any decent tips, and a new hire with no brains in his skull that he’s had to babysit all night, but when he gets back from work at four in the morning to the same fucking _tap-tap-tapping_ emanating from Michael’s room, he pretty much loses it.   
  
He knocks once, perfunctorily, and then opens the door.   
  
Michael turns around with his usual I’m-busy-can’t-you-tell look, but Eames doesn’t let that scare him.   
  
“Do you ever fucking sleep?" he demands. "Do you ever, for a moment, stop working? Fucking god, I just can’t fucking stand you. What’s wrong with you?”

Michael raises an eyebrow, and then opens his mouth.  
  
“Like, do you ever do anything to relax? Read a book? Destroy a few governments? Have a good wank?”  
  
Eames is only vaguely aware that he’s crossing a fucking college-ruled sheet of lines right now.   
  
“Are you gay?” is what Michael replies with.  
  
“What?” says Eames, completely thrown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“You are, aren't you?” Michael says, as if this is a perfectly ordinary conversation.   
  
“Yes, but what - what does that have to do with anything? - actually no, I’m not, I’m bisexual, what?”  
  
“If you’re so annoyed with my apparent inability to “relax” Michael says testily, “then do something about it. Fuck me.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard me,” Michael says. “Now do it before I change my mind.”  
  
Eames gapes.   
  
“Fuck. Me.” He spreads his arms, like some absurd movie hero sacrificing himself for the good of mankind. Or presenting an impossible challenge.   
  
“Fine,” Eames says shortly, and surges forward.  
  
He pushes Arthur ungraciously down on his untouched bed, crawls on top of him, and hardly hesitates before leaning in and pushing his mouth against the smooth expanse of Arthur’s neck. When he bites down, lightly, and Michael jerks into his touch, he smugly thinks, _show ‘im,_ and slides a hand down Michael’s stomach to palm at his crotch.  
  
After a while, he moves up from Michael’s neck to his mouth. He might imagine that Michael instinctively parts his lips to him for a millisecond, but then Michael’s pushing him off.   
  
“Get to the fucking point, this isn’t a fucking romance novel,” he growls, which is somewhat offset by the way his skin is flushed already and his pupils are blown, but Eames doesn’t have a problem with getting to the point. Fine. He can do that.   
  
And get to the point, he does. He has a feeling this might the one and only time he ever gets to fuck the hell out of Michael, so he does, and he takes his goddamn time. If they’re both going to regret this in the morning and never talk about it again, it might as well be worth it. 

If Arthur can’t walk in the morning, then maybe he won’t be able to crawl back into the closet quite as fast. Eames would bet the business of half his best customers that Arthur’s the most closeted fuck on this side of London. 

He doesn't mean to, but at some point, " _Michae-_ " slips out and he bites it back, but it's too late. Michael freezes. 

 _Oh shit,_ he thinks.  _Was I not supposed to do that?_

"It's Arthur," Michael says. 

Eames resolves to be confused about this later. There are more pressing matters at hand. 

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
Sure enough, Michael/Arthur doesn’t come out for omelettes the next day. Then again, Eames doesn’t catch the sound of typing either.   
  
It’s okay. It’s not like he expected anything more.   
  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
  
It’s three in the morning and Arthur is finally done.   
  
Fischer Morrow is gone for good. Every scandalous secret they’ve concealed over the years, every tiny misdemeanor has been dug up and thrown out for the world to see. Not to mention that the majority of their proprietary information has been covertly handed out like Christmas presents to a number of their strongest competitors. Companies internationally would refuse to work with them. Proclus Global has generously offered them a merger deal that’s more of a scavenging sweep than a partnership.   
  
This is the biggest job he’s ever done, but somehow, it doesn’t feel that way.   
  
If anyone cares, it’s the fastest hacking he’s ever done, too.  
  
He supposes that the “relaxation” might have had some part in it, too. He’ll have to consider it more often from now on, providing that Eames is still up for it, no pun intended.  
  
They try it another two times within the next week, and it’s certainly not any worse. They don’t talk about it, and Eames still makes omelettes every afternoon. It’s fantastic.  
.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .  
  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big chapter coming up next... I'm excited about this one. :)


	10. Dinner Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom and Mal throw a party, and Ariadne uses her smarts.

_Eames_  
  
“Hey, Eames,” Ari calls over the bar as she tugs her coat on.  
  
“Yeah?” He locks the front door and turns around.   
  
“Dom wants to know if you wanna come over to his and Mal’s this weekend. It’s gonna be them, Yusuf, and me.”  
  
Despite the fact that Dom’s an American guest professor at ICL, Ariadne’s technically his student there, Mal’s his lawyer wife, and that Yusuf is getting his masters degree at the university as well, a simple bartender like Eames has somehow fallen into their little cohort. How, he’ll never completely understand.   
  
“For what?”  
  
“The usual. Movie, food, drinks.”  
  
“Sounds fine,” Eames says, tucking the keys into his pocket and heading over the to the back of the bar. “Any special occasion?”  
  
“Engagement party.”  
  
“Are you kidding me? What is this, six months late?”  
  
“Well, they apparently spent six months arguing about whether to have an engagement party at all. Mal wanted the works, but Dom didn’t.” she says. “By my understanding, they’ve compromised by having a small party with just friends, and then Mal’s getting an extra fancy bachelorette party. Here, look at the text.”  
  
“Compromised,” Eames scoffs as he shoves his arms into the sleeves of his jacket. “Watch this be the fanciest beers-and-a-movie night you’ve ever been to.”  
  
It is.   
  
Mal drops a shitload of hints, and then stealthily gets the word out that it’ll be a little more than a movie night.   
  
Which in Mal-ese, means semi-formal, and even that’s a stretch. Mal doesn’t do things by half-measures, and certainly not when it comes to the sacred tradition of parties.   
  
When he arrives at the doorstep and rings the doorbell, he wonders what time it is, even though he checked just a few minutes ago. A clatter of heels grows closer, and then the door swings open.  
  
"Eames!" Mal exclaims. She wraps her manicured fingers around his wrist and pulls him in the doorway. He barely has time to push the door shut behind him before she envelops him in a tight hug. Her hair, curled and smelling like floral hairspray, brushes up against the side of his face, and he laughs. When she releases him at last, she holds him at an arm's length and looks him up and down.   
  
"Oh, it's so good to see you, Eames. You look fantastic. Here, give me that horrible coat."  
  
When she reaches over to hang his coat (honestly, he doesn’t understand what’s so horrible about a herringbone wool coat, he _doesn’t_ ) on a hook, he catches sight of a glittering ring on her left hand. She’s wearing a sleek gold number with a draped neckline and tulip-cut hem. Her lipstick is deep red, and so are her shoes. She looks exquisite as always, and Eames tells her so.   
  
"Merci, mon chéri. It's been a long time," she replies with a radiant smile.   "Far too long! Come to the kitchen, Yusuf is here already!"  
  
Delicate quartet recordings are wafting from somewhere in the house, and muffled voices are coming from down the hall.   
  
Eames follows her into the kitchen. Sure enough, Dom and Yusuf are leaning over the marble counter, deep in discussion, though they stop almost immediately when they see him.  
  
“Eames!” Dom exclaims, hurrying around the counter to greet him. “How’ve you been?”  
  
“Great, thanks,” he says. “I brought this,” he adds, raising a slim paper bag. Dom accepts it and pulls out a gleaming bottle of red wine.   
  
“Perfect. Thanks, Eames. We’ll open this at dinner.”  
  
“No problem,” Eames says. “How has moving in been? The place looks fantastic.”  
  
Dom sighs, and Mal rolls her eyes. They proceed to regale him with tales about their interior decorating troubles, including a time that Dom forgot that curtains needed curtain rods.   
  
“ _Vraiment_ ,” Mal sighs with a regal shake of her head. “He’s an _ahr-kitect_ , you’d think he would know these sorts of things.”  
  
“I’m an architect, not an interior designer,” Dom protests.   
  
“Yes, but you’re a grown man, too, aren’t you? A grown man with brains in his head?”  
  
Yusuf is quiet behind the counter, but eventually he graciously rescues Eames from Dom and Mal’s bickering by interrupting. Then Dom goes to check on the lasagna, and Mal goes to pour the wine.   
  
There’s an awkward moment where the two of them are left alone, not unlike two children suddenly deserted by their respective parents at the playground. Yusuf glances down, then up.  
  
“So how’s school?” Eames blurts.   
  
Yusuf looks relieved. “It’s going alright. I’m a little swamped right now, actually.”  
  
“Tough professor?”  
  
“He’s alright, but I’ve just started a huge research project, it’s killing me already, and it’s only been a week.”  
  
Eames chats with him for a while about university. Unlike Dom and Mal, who are ridiculously successful, happy, and generally perfect, Yusuf has certain things in common with Eames. Such as being single and having actual problems.   
  
Then again, Yusuf's also completely straight and has more than a secondary education.   
  
Certain things. Not all things.   
  
But still, they’ve known each other for quite awhile, ever since Yusuf’s failed first (and last) attempt working at a bar. He’d been desperate for a job, and Ari had brought him in one day, asking Eames to give him a chance.  
  
It was a disaster. He approached drink-mixing with the intensity only a chemistry student could have, and while not a drop was spilled, a single cocktail took him about twenty minutes to put together. He was relegated to a different post for the rest of the night, and thankfully, found an internship a little more up his alley a week later.   
  
The doorbell rings, and the front door clicks open a moment later.   
  
“Dom! I got your beer!” Ariadne shouts.   
  
While Mal looks distinctly offended at the mention of beer, Dom immediately brightens up from his pan of sautéed asparagus.   
  
“Thanks, Ari!” he calls. “Bring it to the kitchen, will you? Eames and Yusuf are here already!”  
  
  
.         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .  
  
They sit at the dining table with glasses of the Syrah-Malbec blend that Eames may or may not have swiped from Jules, and catch up.   
  
There’s an appreciative moment of silence when Dom finally comes in bearing his signature lasagna. He sets the dish down, and then pulls off his ridiculous powder-blue oven mitts (complete with embroidered daisies.) Eames raises an eyebrow, and Dom just laughs before heading back to bring in the rest of the food. Mal slips out to help him.   
  
The food is amazing. The lasagna is rich and cheesy and everything that lasagna should be, and the salad is crisp and zesty. Dessert is an elegant little opera cake that Yusuf brought.  
  
After dinner, they go into the living room and pick out a movie. Dom and Mal are weird and ancient, so they don’t have Netflix. Ariadne volunteers her account, though, so they spent the next twenty minutes scrolling around for a movie. No one can figure out what they want, so Ariadne chooses some new action flick.  
  
Yusuf misses the first ten minutes of the movie because he remembers the popcorn. Dom goes with him to the kitchen make sure he doesn’t attempt to experiment by putting it in the oven, the dishwasher, or both.   
  
Evidently the popcorn finds its way into the microwave, because the popping noises lead to the smell of buttery popcorn wafting through the house. When Yusuf and Dom return, they distribute the bags.  
  
It’s a pretty terrible movie, barely on standing it’s VFX legs, and they spend the full two hours laughing at the ridiculous plot holes. Dom breaks out the beer, and a few more glasses of wine are had.  
  
Halfway through, Ariadne gets cold, and goes to get her jacket from the front hall. A few minutes later, Eames leans over and pokes Dom on the shoulder.   
  
“Hey, where’s the toilet?”  
  
“Down the entrance hall, to your left,” Dom says, eyes not leaving the screen.   
  
He’s halfway down the hall when he hears Ariande say, “ _Michael Mafioso? Breakfast?_ ”  
  
Eames skids down the hall so fast he almost gets whiplash.  
  
“ _Ariadne,”_ he growls.  
  
She innocently turns his phone off and tucks it back into the pocket of his jacket, hanging on the wall.  
  
“What?” she says. “You were supposed to tell me about Mystery Texter ages ago.”  
  
Eames snatches his phone back out of his pocket, and then grabs his coat, too, for good measure. He unlocks it.   
  
(5:24 _from Michael Mafioso_ ) _I’ll be gone tomorrow morning, so don’t worry about breakfast_  
  
“That doesn’t mean,” Eames sighs, “that you can just look into my phone whene- how’d you unlock my phone?”  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” she says sweetly. “The alliteration with his name? Adorable. Now, really, it’s hardly a big deal, though, right? I mean if you’re happy, it’s not like I’m going to get on your case about _who's_ making you happy.”  
  
She does have a point. Unlike Mal, with her disgustingly motherly tendencies, Ariadne generally doesn’t give a shit about who Eames sleeps with.   
  
“Yes, fine, maybe I should have mentioned. He’s just my flatmate, honestly. He materialized there one day and has been paying rent since. It’s not like I’m going to get all settled down again, like-”  
  
“Like last time, right. But hey, new boyfriend, that’s a good development!”  
  
Eames is suddenly very acutely aware of how loud her voice is in the deserted hall, and how close the living room is to the hall.   
  
“Shut _up_ ,” Eames mutters. “He’s not my boyfriend. Despite what you may think, I am not cohabiting with every person I happen to sleep with. He pays his _rent_.”  
  
“And you make him breakfast.”  
  
“What’s wrong with that?”  
  
“Nothing, nothing at all. It’s just,” she says patiently, “you aren’t fooling anyone with that dumbass smile you get when you’re texting him all the time. He obviously means something to you.”  
  
“I’m not getting involved in anything serious again, for fuck’s sake. It’s hardly worth discussing. Really.”  
  
“I know,” Ariadne interrupts. “I get that you’re not sure. But if you’re not even going to acknowledge a relationship out loud, what does that say?”  
  
_It says,_ he thinks mutinously, _that this weird fuckbuddy thing I’ve got going on where he mostly ignores me and I give him food could end at any moment, and I barely even talk to him. It’s not like I’m going to be meeting his parents over the weekends for brunch, because I don’t even know if he even has parents, or siblings, or a divorced ex-wife, or a million skeletons in his no doubt very tightly locked closet._  
  
“It says that it’s something for me to think about and you to kindly fuck off about,” Eames says sternly, but even he can tell there’s no heat in his words, and Ariadne’s grin just inches wider.  
  
“I suggest you change your passcode,” is all she says. “It’s _so_ predictable. Seriously, the address of Jules? No creativity at all. Could have at least put it backwards.”  
  
Eames goes for his phone, muttering under his breath.  
  
“What was that?” she asks.  
  
“I said, I _swear_ you get smarter when you’re drunk.”  
  
.         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .  
  
  
By the time the credits to the second movie roll, there’s popcorn all over the ground, at least one of Mal’s heels has migrated underneath the couch, and both Ariadne and Yusuf are inexplicably lying on the ground.   
  
They talk for what must be hours after that, and Yusuf makes yet more popcorn. At some point, someone finally acknowledges the fact that the party will have to end.   
  
“I hope,” Dom mumbles, “that none of you are driving. Home. Driving home.”  
  
It’s hilarious, really, that Dom is still trying to be the responsible adult when he’s likely more hammered than the rest of them combined.   
  
“I’m not dumb,” Ariadne says from where she is wrapped up in both her and Eames’s coats in a vaguely walrus-shaped lump on the ground.   
  
“Me neither,” Yusuf insists earnestly from the ground. He flaps his left foot at Dom. Dom shoves the foot off the armrest. It thunks to the ground along with Yusuf's attached leg, followed by its comrade on the right and Yusuf groans.   
  
“No feet on the couch,” Dom admonishes sternly, the effect of which is somewhat ruined by the slurring.   
  
Mal is curled up on Dom’s chest, her bare feet in Eames’s lap. With her eyes closed, she reaches down, unerringly grabs an empty beer can off the ground, and chucks it at her fiance’s head. It bounces off and hits Yusuf in the stomach.   
  
“Shut up, _merde-_ head, I’m trying to sleep. You’re a terrible host. _Andouille._ ”  
  
“See, how she abuses me,” he says woefully, stroking her hair. “How terrible and cruel this woman is, of course I had to propose.”  
  
“They’re even worse when they’re drunk,” Ari notes.  
  
“It’s like they’re designed to make us singles depressed,” Yusuf agrees.   
  
“What time is it?” Eames says from where he’s stretched over the opposite end of the couch. Yusuf checks his phone.   
  
“Two fifteen. Shit.”  
  
“How much of my life did I waste on those movies,” Eames sighs.   
  
Yusuf lurches to his feet. “No, seriously, _shit_ , my professor wants me in the lab at six in the fucking morning tomorrow. And I’ll be _hungover_ .”   
  
“Well who's dumb fucking idea was it to get drunk?” Ariadne remarks. She emerges from one end of her parka-burrito, looking impossibly smug.   
  
Eames snorts. “As if you’re not.”  
  
“I’m _not_ ,” she says gleefully. “Haven’t had a drop besides the wine at dinner. You guys really don’t notice at all, do you? _Someone_ has a car she drove here all by herself, and is going to drive home all by herself.”  
  
“I noticed,” Yusuf says.   
  
“Doesn’t count, you already know.”  
  
Ariadne doesn’t drink much, at least not in front of Dom, but Eames hadn’t realized she didn’t drink at all. At first, he thought it was a look-good-in-front-of-my-professor thing, but he later discovers that she’s just very serious about preserving each and every one of her brain cells.  
  
Then again, that kind of smugness, he reflects, is something only seen on a sober person surrounded by drunk friends.   
  
“Oh,” he realizes belatedly. “So you’re just that smart all the time?”  
  
Thankfully, no one asks what he means by that. Yusuf is too distressed to pick up on it.  
  
“I regret it,” Yusuf is saying sorrowfully. He sways up to his knees. “I will regret it _so_ much.” He disappears behind the couch with a thump.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Dom consoles. “You could ace finals drunk. You’ll be fine.”  
  
“Been there, done that,” the couch moans. “It wasn’t fun. Barely scraped a 98%”  
  
“It’s just one day in the lab,” Ariadne adds with a hint more sympathy. She unrolls herself from her cocoon. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”  
  
“My place is so far from yours,” Yusuf protests sadly. “You’ll waste at least forty minutes. Don’t you have shit to do tomorrow?”  
  
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”  
  
“IQ meeting, right?”  
  
Ariadne seems a little taken aback. “Yeah, actually.”  
  
Yusuf nods, which really looks more like a horizontal twitch from the floor.  
  
There is a long silence, and Eames looks over to see that Yusuf is still nodding.  
  
“Yusuf,” Mal unexpectedly speaks up, eyes still shut. “We don’t have spare bed, but you could sleep on the couch tonight, no problem.”  
  
“Dude, you do _not_ want Yusuf to sleep over,” Ariadne says emphatically. “He snores like an elephant. A congested elephant. Your romantic engagement party cuddle-night will be ruined.”  
  
“Romantic,” Dom snorts.  
  
“Dude,” Mal repeats disdainfully.   
  
“Yusuf, you’re right,” Ariadne continues. “I’m not going to drive all the way to your house. You can stay at my flat. My roommate won’t care, a fire alarm wouldn’t wake her.”  
  
“But-” he protests weakly.  
  
“It’s a very reasonable offer,” Eames points out.   
  
“Up you go,” Ariadne concludes briskly, clambering to her feet. She rounds the couch and nudges Yusuf with her foot. “I’ll even make you my special hangover drink in the morning.”  
  
“Your special hangover drinks are bullshit,” Eames says. “I’m pretty sure you just close your eyes, reach into your fridge, and dump the first five things you touch into a blender. Foam takeout boxes and all. With a dash of dryer lint.”  
  
“Well they work,” Ariadne retorts.   
  
“At what cost?” Eames wonders aloud.  
  
“Eames, you get a taxi,” Mal murmurs sleepily.   
  
“Yeah, you should get home,” Ariadne says. “You don’t want to make your boyfriend worry.”  
  
“The fuck,” Dom says flatly. “Ariadne, did you _forget_ ? He and-”  
  
“No, silly,” she laughs. She tosses Eames’s jacket to him. It lands over his face, and he doesn’t even attempt to dislodge it. “He’s got a new ah, _roommate._ I’m sure he’ll tell you all about him later. And Eames, sweetie, give this one a chance.”  
  
“Ari,” Eames whines. “You don’t get to give away my secrets like that. You’re not even drunk.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” she says brightly. “He probably won’t even remember it tomorrow morning.”  
  
.         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .  
  
_September, 2001_  
  
_“Arthur?”_  
  
_“Arthur!”_  
  
_Bam. Bam. Just like the video games, but instead of countless, lumbering zombies, it’s two humans. They crumple, ungracefully, spilling his own blood into the plush carpet._  
  
_Till death do us apart._  
  
_He hopes they are together, in their own special corner of Hell._  
  
_The bodies lie at funny angles, like sleeping toddlers. They are nothing but meatsacks dressed up in expensive golf shirts and pearls. He observes the way their arms and legs are splayed out. It looks terribly uncomfortable._  
  
_How silly. He hopes he won’t look like that, too._  
  
_Then he’s sitting in the dining room, in his father's big wooden chair with carved armrests, with the barrel of the gun firmly pressed against his own head. He sits there, and closes his eyes. He sees himself naked and broken, with his parents’ blood on his hands. He sees hell, where there is no sun or grass or golf courses, just darkness, and the trigger under his finger is his golden ticket._  
  
_He is not scared of it._  
  
_In fact, he can see the gates already. A gaping mouth opens in the darkness under his eyelids, with gnashing teeth spread in a wide grin. He sees his parents waving slowly from the other side of the gate. Their bloodstained faces are frozen in smiles, their hands dripping with black tar. Countless figures grasp at the gates, smearing blackness over their arms. He can feel the flames flickering across his tips of his fingers, the hard plastic leaching gold into his skin. He smiles and pulls._  
  
Arthur wakes up, gasping for breathe. His chest is tight and heaving, his sheets tangled. He drags a hand across his forehead. It's damp, as if he’s been running. For a moment, the moisture on his hands feels thick and cloying, and he stares at them through the darkness of his room, trying to see.   
  
It looks like blood, but he blinks. Once again, his hands are dipped only in late night shadow.   
  
He exhales slowly, and checks the clock.   
  
1:32 am. Again. And he had been making such good progress.  
  
.         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .         .         .       .       .  
  
Eames takes an extremely long piss before he leaves Dom and Mal’s. He desperately wishes that they don’t hear him, but in the dead silence of the house, the best he can hope for is that he doesn’t wake Mal with the thunderous noise, amplified by the tiled walls.   
  
When he exits, he sees Dom at the end of the hall, carrying a sleeping Mal. Dom attempts to wave goodbye with his head, nearly stumbles into the wall, and then settles on whisper-shouting something intelligible. Eames waves and lets himself out.   
  
The night air is cold, and a fresh coat of snow has fallen. The air feels good against his alcohol-flushed skin, though, so he decides to walk instead of calling a cab. His flat is relatively close, maybe a twenty minute walk. He figures his chances of getting mugged are relatively low.  
  
Yes, Eames is drunk. Being a bartender doesn’t give him immunity, but he does have the ability to pretty quickly metabolize alcohol.   
  
He enjoys the relative peace. London is never quiet, of course, but the darkness helps a little. He can hear the crunch of the snow under his shoes, and his feet are getting cold. His face and hands are getting cold too. It’s okay, though.   
  
When he rounds the street corner, he sees a figure sitting, hunched over, on the steps leading up to the front door of his flat. He keeps walking, slightly apprehensive. If it’s a homeless guy, it must be a particularly unfortunate homeless guy. Even from a distance, he can tell that he or she hasn’t got a coat on.   
  
He doesn’t recognize the man until he gets up close and stops in front of him. The street lights cast deep pools of shadow over his eye sockets and under his cheekbones. It’s Arthur.   
  
He’s wearing only slacks and a thin undershirt. His feet are bare, his arms crossed on his knees.   
  
“Arthur?”  
  
He doesn’t reply, just slowly looks up from Eames’s feet to his face. His eyes are bloodshot, his brow furrowed in slight confusion.   
  
Eames crouches down to the ground and looks up at him. “Arthur? You - you okay, darling?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Arthur says quietly. “Go inside.”  
  
Eames can’t help it. He laughs, and the sound is loud and abrasive before the snow absorbs it. It’s just, he’s not exactly the one sitting outside in the freezing cold in bare feet. _Go inside._  
  
“Darling,” he repeats. “It’s cold. How long’ve you been out here?”   
  
Arthur doesn’t reply - just stares straight through him.   
  
Without thinking, Eames reaches out and touches Arthur’s face, strokes down one side of his hollowed cheeks. The skin is cold, dry, and a little rough, with a smattering of dark stubble.   
  
“So you are cold,” he says quietly.   
  
Arthur jerks back and looks at Eames, with shock that fades into wariness. Eames lets his hand fall back. He wants to look away, but those bloodshot eyes lock onto his, and then they flick over his disheveled hair and rumpled clothing.   
  
“You’re drunk," Arthur says,  
  
“Yeah.” He sits back on his heels and looks down, and then up again.  
  
“I’m a nice drunk though,” he adds.  
  
“No such thing as nice drunk,” Arthur says. “Just mean drunks and dumb drunks.”   
  
“Well then, I guess I’m a dumb drunk,” Eames says.   
  
Arthur pauses, considering. “Get up.”   
  
Eames gets up.   
  
“Walk in a straight line, to that lamppost.”  
  
He walks, to the lamppost, and turns around. Good thing is he’s walked the entire way home, so he’s had plenty of time to get back into his legs.   
  
Arthur still looks awfully cold, even from several meters away.  
  
“Aren’t you cold? Do you want my jacket?”  
  
“Come back over here,” Arthur replies. “Straight line.”  
  
Eames goes back, deliberately placing one foot in front of the next. His footprints leave a perfectly straight line, evidence in the snow.   
  
“Say the alphabet backwards.”  
  
“ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA,” Eames says without hesitation.   
  
“That’s better than most sober people.”  
  
“I metabolize quickly. And I’ve had practice. Testing customers. I gotta know if they’re saying it right. Plenty have tried starting with Z, ending with A, and fucking up the rest.”  
  
“Well,” Arthur says after a long moment, “You’re not a dumb drunk.”  
  
A police siren wails in the distance.   
  
“I’m not a mean one either.”  
  
“Then you’re not drunk.”  
  
“Yeah?” Eames asks bemusedly.  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
The word sounds so foreign, coming from Arthur. Arthur, who never says “yeah” or “uh-huh”, only “yes” and “no, thank you” and “fuck, Eames, harder, _harder_ ”.   
  
Eames is suddenly mentally assaulted by the image of Arthur that one night, two weeks ago, splayed across his perfect white sheets, hair mussed, cheeks flushed.   
  
Uh.  
  
He looks up at Arthur, all of a sudden sure that his thoughts are so loud that Arthur can see them too, in perfect HD.   
  
Arthur moves his feet to ground level, then pushes himself off the step, so he’s crouched at the same level as Eames. He’s so close, Eames can feel Arthur’s breathing, see the rapid, yet steady rise and fall of his chest.   
  
Then Arthur puts his hands on Eames’s shoulders. His grip is cold and firm, and he doesn’t break his stare. His red eyes are strangely terrifying. Eames forgets how to breathe.  
  
“You’re not drunk,” Arthur repeats.   
  
“Just a little,” Eames whispers.   
  
“Good,” Arthur says, and then he rises a little and tightens his grips on Eames’s shoulders and spins him so that his back hits the steps and they’ve switched places. Eames’s hands shoot out to brace himself on the cement steps.   
  
Eames has probably remembered how to breathe again, because he can feel his pulse racing.   
  
Arthur scoots a little closer, their knees almost touching. “Not drunk.”  
  
Eames mutely shakes his head.  
  
And then Arthur leans forward, and crushes his mouth to Eames’s.   
  
It’s freezing, too, just like the rest of him. Eames leans back him though, desperately. His eyes slip shut, and he kisses him back, and opens his lips under his. Everything about Arthur is cold, but his mouth is a little less so, and Eames tries to warm him the only way he can.  
  
He is vaguely aware of Arthur’s hands sliding up from his shoulders to his neck, to the sides of his face. Arthur is looming over him, but in the most delicate way. The possessiveness of his grip, though, the intensity of his mouth on Eames’s, is anything but delicate.   
  
Eames reaches out for Arthur, and his hands land on his waist and move over his back. He can feel his ribs, each vertebrae of his spine through his flimsy cotton shirt. Arthur moves himself over Eames so that he’s pretty much sitting in his lap, feet on either side of his legs. His shoulder blades shift under Eames’s hands, and his lips lift away for a second before catching Eames’s again.   
  
Somehow, that one little adjustment becomes on of the fastest turn-ons that Eames has ever experienced in his life.   
  
When they finally break for air, Eames gasps, “God, Arthur,” before leaning back on his elbows,, regaining his breath, feeling thoroughly debauched. “And here I was, thinking you were still in the closet.” He lets his hands unclasp from the steps. No doubt there are imprints of the edge of the step on his palms, the grains of the cement embossing themselves into his skin.  
  
Arthur’s breathing gradually slows, and then their eyes meet again, and all of a sudden, Arthur tenses up. Eames can feel it against the tops of his legs.  
  
Arthur pulls away, as much as one can while straddling another’s thighs. Even in his somewhat drunk and entirely confused state,   Eames can tell that Arthur is realizing what he just did and is about to bolt. His expression is approaching downright horrified.   
  
“No, Arthur, it’s okay,” he says in an attempt to be consoling, reaching for Arthur’s hands. He immediately tenses up even more, so Eames lets go.   
  
“No, it’s not, I’m not - you’re drunk, you-”  
  
“I won’t try to make - make you do anything, do anything _to_ you, I would never _,_ ” Eames pleads. He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for, but he can’t let Arthur just run away like that again, looking guilty and frustrated and regretful.  
  
“It’s not that, you’re not in your right mind, I’m sober, and you’re - who are you kidding, you’re _drunk_ ,” Arthur grits out.   
  
It takes Eames a few moments to put it together.   
  
“You’re not taking _advantage_ of me,” Eames says incredulously.   
  
Arthur relaxes, if only incrementally. “I am.”  
  
“Come on,” Eames says, “Haven’t I proved that I’m sober? Walked the line, said the alphabet?”  
  
Arthur practically pouts.  
  
“Fine. Whatever you say. What do we do now, then?”  
  
He is silent. Eames sighs and leans back against the step, which digs uncomfortably into his back.  
  
At last, he speaks.   
  
“Go inside?”  
  
“Thought you’d never ask,” Eames mutters, hoisting Arthur to his feet. 

 


	11. Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years!

_Arthur_

Arthur wakes up the next morning warm, well-rested, and very much alone. He blearily notes that he’s not in his own bed, and more importantly, that the rumpled pace beside him is entirely empty. The previous night comes back in crystal clear detail.

Oh.

All of a sudden, the empty space to his left becomes much more concerning. What if Eames regrets everything? What if he thinks that he was acting completely out of line because Eames was drunk? What if he’s grumpy and hungover and never wants to have sex with Arthur ever again?

Given, Arthur’s never seen Eames display any signs of the last three, but still. Then Arthur’s inner narrator surlily reminds him _why should he care if Eames doesn’t want to fuck with him anymore, it’s not like London is short on people._

Arthur worries about these items for several minutes before he realizes that his brain is hardly running at full capacity.

He needs coffee, dammit, or else _he’ll_ be the one who’s grumpy and hungover.

He wanders out of Eames’s bedroom, pulling on some boxers and a shirt on his way, and goes off in search of Eames.

He's is nowhere to be found. The kitchen is untouched - everything just as he left it last night.

Arthur tries very hard not to start panicking. In a moment of genius, he remembers why he came to the kitchen in the first place. He starts the coffee machine, watches it gurgle away, and panics.

He panics until the coffee is done, at which he lifts his mug and panics some more as he takes his first sip of the day.

 _Okay_ , he thinks as the first few milligrams of caffeine absorb into his bloodstream. _I can handle this. Maybe he’s just out early. For no particular reason. That’s  just what hungover people do, isn’t it? Wander outdoors first thing in the morning._

By the time he’s a third of his way finished, he remembers that he can just text Eames. He goes back to his room, fishes out his phone, and returns to the kitchen as he composes the text.

 

_Hey..._

_Hey..._

_Hey, where are you?_

 

Too casual. He never asks Eames this kind of thing. Except sometimes. But not like this.

 

_I’m going out to breakfast. See you later._

 

He’s going out for breakfast? No way. He does not want to face any type of humanity, save Eames right now.

 

_I’m going out to breakfast. See you later._

_I’m going out to breakfast. Se_

_I’m going out to breakf_

_I’m going out_

_I’m goi_

_I_

_..._

_ay b_

_ay bb wh_

_ay bb where r u_

 

He snickers and deletes the text immediately.

Eventually, he settles on a passable combination of words. With a last fortifying sip of coffee, and presses send.

Two gunshots go off.

Right. Outside. His door.

He chokes and nearly falls over.

Arthur carefully lowers his mug to the table and creeps over to his front door. A clean hole is blown right through at eye-level.

Arthur hesitantly backs away a few steps before looking through the hole at an angle. Sure enough, there’s an unfamiliar man at the other side of the entrance. In front of him, holding the gunman’s wrists above his head, is the slightly more comforting sight of James.

Arthur isn’t stupid, he knows that James is somewhere very high up on the military ladder. He suspects MI6, and would have hacked into their databases earlier, well, if it weren’t so damn annoying. It’s not that he couldn’t, he reminds himself. It’s that it's too bothersome and boring, and he had better things to do than creep on his neighbors.

Anyhow, he figures it should at least be somewhat safe with James in the situation. He opens the door.

“Well, hello there,” the gunman rasps. His gaze scours Arthur from around the back of James's head. He’s blond, huge, and apparently not putting up much of a fight with his captor. James has got one arm across the man’s neck, and the other hand pinning his wrists up against the door. The back of his head looks as furious as the back of a head could look. He is also very, very still.“Hello,” says Arthur, gingerly toeing a gun out of his way as he steps out.

“Say, James,” the man says conversationally. “You never mentioned that you got a new neighbor. And an _American_ , at that. Exotic”

“Well,” James says tightly, “if you had seen fit to _stop by_...’

The man ignores him, instead focusing on Arthur. His eyes are brown and very intelligent, with a hint of amusement. His chin bobs against James’s forearm as he speaks.

“Sorry about the door, mate. James here tackled me and made the shot go wild. It’s Alec, by the way.”

“Uh,” Arthur says.

It is at this point that he realizes it is the middle of November and he is standing outside in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt that isn’t his. Through his peripheral vision, he can tell that it’s a hideous shade of green and has some sort of graphic print on it. Now that he thinks of it, the boxers might not be his either.

He wears boxer _briefs_ , dammit. He can’t see these, but he has a sinking feeling they have something horrible about them, too.

"You alright?" Alec wonders.

“Arthur," Arthur blurts. "I’m Arthur. Care to explain what you were aiming for?”

He winces internally.

Alec rolls his eyes. “That damn doorbell never works right. I wasn’t going to stand out here all day knocking, so I decided to shoot it.”

“The doorbell,” Arthur repeats.

“No, the lock, of course.”

“Shoot what?”

Eames is standing at the base of the steps, bearing several plastic bags. He looks up nonchalantly at the bizarre scene.

“Oh, hello Alec. Hello James. Morning, Arthur.”

"Hello, Eames," Alec says happily. 

Eames cocks a brow at Arthur’s getup. “Nice outfit. That shirt's a bit too young for me, you can keep it.”

“God,” Arthur groans, burying his head in his hands. “It’s too early for this. I don't even want to ask who this guy is. Eames, where the hell were you?”

“Grocery,” Eames says innocently. “We’re out of eggs and milk. I needed to make breakfast.”

“Speaking of breakfast, I could use some,” Alec chimes in. “I haven’t had a decent in meal, in what, three weeks?”

From behind James, a head of shaggy black hair pokes out his door.

“I second that,” Taylor groggily declares. “But, Alec, get your ass in here first so I can yell at you.”

“Now that,” James says grimly, “Is something I can get behind.”

An expression that might be fear flickers very briefly over Alec’s face.

“Well, you’re all invited over for pancakes when you’re done,” Eames offers.

“Give us a few minutes,” Alec says apologetically as he is whisked into the opposing flat. The door slams shut a with a series of ominous clicks.

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .

“I must admit,” Eames says, as he cracks eggs, “that you in my clothes was a nice surprise.”

Arthur examines the shirt as he leans against the kitchen counter. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Seriously?”

“What can I say?” Eames says. “It was a good show.”

Arthur tugs at the boxers. They’re yellow, with red cherries stitched all over. How did he not _notice_?

“You actually _wear_ these?”

“Don’t give me that look, it’s not like anyone sees them. They weren’t even mine.” He begins vigorously whisking the batter.

“God, then I'm hoping you never spoke to him again.”

There’s a brief lapse in the whisking.

“Ex-boyfriend’s,” he says casually. “Asshole left them here a long time ago.”

“Wow,” Arthur mutters. “Heritage boxers. I feel honored.”

He goes to take a shower.

 

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .

 

_Q_

 

Q knocks on the door, observing it’s brand-new peephole with a chuckle.

“It’s me,” he calls.

“Come in!” Eames shouts.

He enters the door and finds Eames bent intently over a sizzling pan, a condiment squeeze bottle in hand.

“Good morning, Taylor,” Eames says. “Are Alec and James coming?”

“Yeah, they’re showering right now.” He walks over, and then looks over his shoulder. “Wow, nice. Is that a gun?”

“Yeah,” says Eames as he carefully fills in the pistol-shaped pancake with batter.

“Impressive.”

Eames shrugs.  “It’s fun to do when I’ve got time, and more people to show off to.” He straightens and grins at Q.

Q laughs. “I can’t even make toast if it’s not automated.” His phone buzzes several times in quick succession.

 

JAMES: BE OVER IN 3 MIN. YOU SHOULD REGRET NOT STAYING.

JAMES: IT WAS FUN ;)

JAMES: That was Alec

 

He tucks his phone away. “The other two will be over soon.”

“Great,” Eames says. “Do you know gun models?”

 

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .

 

Ten minutes later, James and Alec still aren’t there. Eames and Q have gone ahead and had breakfast without them. They chat, and inevitably, the conversation turns to “Michael.”

“Yeah,” Eames says. “He goes by Arthur now. I guess it’s his middle name or something.”

Q notes this with some surprise. He didn’t think that the reborn hacker liked to use his old name.

“Well,” Q says. “Some people don’t like going by their first names. You would know.”

“Touche,” Eames acknowledges.

“So,” Q continues, “it seems like you two have been getting on well.”

Eames sighs. “All he does is work. I don’t see him around much, really.”

“Yeah?” he replies. “What does he do?”

“Honestly,” Eames says, “I’m not that sure. Bitcoin mining, stocks, something on a laptop.”

Q holds back a snort. _Bitcoin mining._ If bitcoins were the fiercely protected systems of companies and governments, and mining was hacking.

“Nice,” Q says blandly.

The shower turns off.

“You still in tech support, right?” Eames asks.

“Yeah.”

“How’s that?”

“Same old, same old. A whole lot of telling clients to turn it off and on again.”

Eames laughs. He is loose and easy with his amusement. In Q’s business, it’s all tension and calculated moves. He notes to himself to spend more time with civilians. It’s refreshing.

“And how’s the bar doing?”

“I’ve had to pick up a lot of extra shifts because of people getting sick, but it’s not too much more than usual.”

They chat for a while about Eames’s bar. As Eames flips the last pancake, (an rose, with the inner petals darker than the outer ones) Arthur comes in. His hair looks recently-toweled, and despite what Q suspects to be his best attempts, still sticks out in fluffy tufts. He’s in chinos and an expensive-looking sweater.

“Hi,” Q says. “I hear you go by Arthur now?”

Arthur glances at Eames, whose back is still turned at the stovetop. “Yes.” His expression is inscrutable.

Q silently scrambles for a conversation topic, but thankfully, Eames rescues them both.

“Alright,” he says, opening the cupboard for plates. “Breakfast,” he says, setting them on the table, “is ready.”

He brings out juice and milk, offers them both. Q accepts water, and Arthur (unsurprising) starts the coffee. Eames pours himself a glass of juice, and breakfast commences.

Fifteen minutes minutes and six collective pancakes later, Q checks his watch. “Well, those two are certainly taking their time _catching up_. Honestly, if I was like that every time James was on a business trip...”

Eames furrows his brow.

“You and James are still...” he starts hesitantly.

“Together? Oh of course,” Q says. He’s never specifically spoken with Eames about his relationship with James, but there have definitely been enough incidences for Eames to get the hint. “Alec’s a good friend of ours. Just joins in on the fun sometimes.”

“Oh,” Eames says, expression clearing. “So is it an open - marriage? engagement… sort of thing?”

“Yeah,” Q says with a grin.

“Exactly that sort of thing,” James adds as he silently pads in. His hair is damp. Alec is nowhere to be seen.

“Alec’s resting up. He’s had a long commute,” he adds.

“Oh,” Eames says, getting to his feet. “I can wrap up the extra pancakes and send them over for you and him. Arthur and I are finished.”

“Thanks,” James says. “Arthur, your boyfriend’s a blessing. I’m the only one who can cook - Taylor and Alec are both hopeless.”

“I must say that James is right, darling” Eames says, stretching plastic wrap over a thick stack of circle-shaped pancakes. “You’re lucky to have me.”

 

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .

 

As they make their way back to their own flat, James says “Engaged? _Married?_ ”

“What else would it look like, after all these years?” Q retorts.

James just chuckles. “All that talk of business trips and tech support. Did I ever mention you’re not a bad liar?”

“They’re not completely lies,” Q points out.

In the living room, Q is greeted with the sight of Alec lying facedown and shirtless on the couch. His back is covered with a red, scabbing marks.

“Shit,” he murmurs, maneuvering to his side. “What did they do?”

“Chemicals, I think,” Alec says into the couch cushions. “And normal things too. It gets a little hard to tell the difference after a while. Can we hold the debriefing for tomorrow?”

The burns go around his sides and over his shoulders. They’re covered with what looks like a thin layer of ointment.

“Yeah, we can hold it,” Q says.

“Alright,” James says, rounding the table. “Time for bandages.”

“Christ,” Alec groans. “Are you trying to impress Medical? They’ll probably just rip it all off and do it again.”

“I’m trying,” James says, “To not get blood and pus all over my furniture. And don’t worry, I’m using the non-stick gauze. It’ll come right off tomorrow. Anyways, you know that if you come in then you’ll be spending the next twelve hours in debriefing.”

“Well, you’ll have Eames’s pancakes to look forward to afterwards,” Q says as he rises to get out of James’s way. “They’re shaped like guns. You two can point them at each other and say ‘pew pew’.”

_____________________

 

The next day, an appropriate shock ripples through MI6 when Alec walks in in one piece. Then again, resurrections aren’t all that infrequent, and he wasn’t even properly declared dead. Q is secretly glad that Alec went to James and him first, because if he just strolled into work under Q’s nose, Q might have had a class-A freakout.

He hasn’t had a class-A freakout for _years._

Later that day, a technical malfunction from some factory shows up on his feed. It seems inconsequential, just a report involving sys admin passwords not working, and a requisition for new passwords, until he looks at the factory it came from.

BAE, the manufacturer of the new Successor programme, which happened to be the successor to the Trident programme.

Nukes.

 

_________________

 

_Eames_

 

The moment the door shuts behind Taylor and James, Arthur rounds on Eames.

“What was that about?”

“What?”

“ _Boyfriend_?”

Oh shit. That conversation. Eames is still not ready for this.

“That was James’s term, not mine. What was I supposed to say? “Sorry, James, we’re actually just friends with benefits. Except without the “friends” part, and the only benefits are that I make him food and occasionally fuck him into the mattress.”

“And that spiel about me being lucky to _have you_?” Arthur continues.

“Oh,” Eames says archly. “I’m supposed to be the one who’s grateful for someone who pays rent, eats my food, and occasionally has sex with me? I’m sorry, but you’re not exactly the only guy in the world who can do that.”

“No, you bloody idiot,” Arthur near-yells. “I don’t _have_ people. I don’t get _lucky_ . I don’t get _boyfriends_.”

He says the word “boyfriends” with such hatred that Eames immediately knows that the singular suitcase Arthur brought in that first day was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to baggage.

“You know, the front door isn’t exactly soundproof anymore,” Eames says.

Arthur resorts to breathing angrily, with direction.

“I’m not,” he grinds out quietly. “Your anything.”

“I never said you were!” Eames calls after him as he storms away.

Thirty minutes later, while Eames is washing the dishes, Arthur swiftly exits the flat, slinging a duffel bag Eames didn’t even know he owned over his shoulder.

 

.        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .        .        .       .       .

 

_Arthur_

 

He kicks the man out of his hotel room. He considers it generous of himself to have allowed him the shower. Now there’s water all over the bathroom floor. The place smells faintly of cheap cologne. Fucking slobs. He supposes it’s what he deserves for picking up men in bars.

He throws a few towels on the ground to soak up the excess water. It’s nice that he won’t have to pick them up. He’ll leave to go clubbing or something the next night and when he comes back, the towels will be replaced by fluffy, dry ones, all folded and stacked neatly on the rack.

It’s been a while since Arthur has lived in a hotel. He doesn’t miss it as much as he thought he would. It’s also been a long time since he’s hooked up with someone he picked up in bar (Eames doesn’t count), and he doesn’t miss that as much as he thought either.      

The luxury is nice, though.

He goes into the linked room that he booked, showers, changes into nightclothes, and gets in bed. It’s late, and the roar of traffic is louder here than it is in the flat. The comforter is warmer than his, so he cranks the temperature down before getting into the crisp bed.

He hasn’t had any coffee today, just a copious amount of alcohol, (two drinks and a shot) and some decent sex. Just as planned, he’s tired. He watches the grainy darkness of the ceiling swirl and eddy. He listens to his breathing, feels his chest rise and fall. Slowly but surely, he drifts off.

“You’re an idiot,” Robert says.

“No I’m not,” Arthur tells him.

Robert lays back on the pristine green, folding his arms behind his head. He unfolds one arm and pats the grass beside him.

“Come over here, have a seat. I promise I won’t touch you.”

Arthur considers it. He goes in and under the shade of the big pecan tree, and sits down beside Robert. Then he lies down. The grass is cool and stiff, and too long for golf course standards. It feels surprisingly good through his t-shirt. The breeze is gentle and pleasant.

He turns his head and looks at Robert. It’s funny how relaxed he feels. He can’t remember ever feeling this calm around Robert. He’s glad they’re alright now.

“You know,” Robert says. “You’ve quite ruined my life.”

“Well,” Arthur points out, “You ruined mine.”

Robert shrugs horizontally. “An eye for an eye, then.”

The wind rustles through the branches. No leaves dislodge. Arthur turns his head away from Robert, presses his hands into the overgrown grass. As he runs his fingers through the blades, they turn yellow and brittle.

“I’m sorry,” Robert says.

“Are you.” Arthur turns to look at him.

“I am. I really am.” Robert meets his eyes. His eyes are as blue as ever, his features just as striking as Arthur remembers.

“You’d never believe me, and I can’t take any of it back. But Artie,” he sighs, “I’m so very sorry.”

“I’ve grown up now, you see. I wasn’t a child, but not an adult either. I was pretending to know what I wanted, and pretending to know how to get it. I was playing a game that I was never going to win, and I’m sorry I dragged-”

“It’s alright,” Arthur says, and is surprised to realize that he means it. “I’ve moved on.”

“No, you haven’t,” Robert insists, pushing up to one elbow. “Don’t be stupid. You may have chosen to do what you’ve done, but I know that I was the one who started it.”

“Well, I can thank you, then. My life is far more interesting than it would’ve been.”

Robert looks pained. “Don’t thank me.”

Arthur stays silent.

“I just wanted you to know that it’s taken me years to realize there’s more. There’s more than this.” He gestures to the peaceful landscape around them.

“Obviously,” Arthur says. He feels sleepy and warm. He lets his eyelids drift shut.

“There are good ways to ruin your life, too.”

“Are there?”

Arthur slowly notices that the grass he is lying on is prickly and uncomfortable. He opens his eyes to see that the it has turned yellow and dead around him. The dead patch spreads and spreads until it hits Robert, and Robert lies there peacefully as his hair thins and turns gray. His muscles waste away, his skin sags, his prominent cheekbones become even more prominent.

Only his eyes remain as piercingly blue as they once were.

He turns his head to look at Arthur.

“I’ll always be sorry, Arthur. But you shouldn’t be.”

Arthur opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment, a gust of wind starts up. The tree branches above them rattle raucously, and a hurricane of dried leaves rains down on them. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

As leaves cover him, Arthur loses sight of Robert. The leaves keep accumulating, until they have formed a sea above him. Yet, somehow, there is still light. A gentle gold light glows through the crisp leaves, which tumble and flow over his body, light as feathers.

The storm gathers.

Arthur wakes up to rain beating down at windows of the suite. He gets up, washes up, and then brings out his laptop. He left some of the more powerful external components in the flat, but he’s definitely got enough to do some decent work. He noodles around, messes with a few sites that piss him off, and then orders room service.

When it arrives and he goes to open the door, he realizes that it’s unlocked. He must have forgotten the night before - it’s been a while since he’s had to lock his bedroom door.

He tips the maid generously and settles at the desk with his breakfast. For the sake of it, he’s ordered cold cereal and fruit. It’s always amused him how boxed cereals were provided at even some of the swankiest hotels - and always at an exorbitant price. But to someone wealthy enough, he supposed it didn’t matter. If they wanted cereal, they got cereal.

He stays at the hotel for another week, but he has no more dreams. He spends his time rotating between working, picking up people in a variety of places, bringing the back to his suite, and convincing himself that he’s not lonely.

But he knows that truth is, he’s been lonely for a long time.

_“I’m not your anything!”_

_“I never said you were.”_

He blames his eidetic memory.

The words mock him, laugh at his cowardice. He hates them, hates _Eames,_ hates everything.

  
At the end of the week, he goes back.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to the wonderful alxstor for beta-ing!
> 
> comments <3


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